


We Meet Again

by Brennanaphone



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Bellarke, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, Post-Season/Series 02, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-16
Updated: 2015-06-04
Packaged: 2018-03-23 05:54:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 39,345
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3756934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Brennanaphone/pseuds/Brennanaphone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bellamy and Clarke meet up for the first time Post-Season 2 and finally acknowledge their amazing friggin' chemistry.</p><p>So, this started out as a simple way to get Bellamy Blake's dimples out of my mind, but that didn't work, because it turns out that he also has a voice like gravel dragged through chocolate sex pudding, so this kind of spiraled out of control and I guess I wrote a slow burn episode of The 100 on accident.</p><p>Only, like with porn in it? </p><p>So say we all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Reunion

He had only been in the woods two days, but Bellamy Blake already felt better.

Camp Jaha had had a dusty, tinny smell to it. The earth all around the soldered pieces of the Ark had long ago been stamped flat. The camp was always filled with a sea of shuffling figures with bent, dark heads and dirty hair. And the memory of Clarke rested heavily there, for everyone. 

For awhile, it seemed to Bellamy that he saw Clarke among the crowd on a daily basis, just out of the corner of his eye, until it nearly drove him mad. He'd see the white flash of sunlight on gleaming metal and for a moment it was her blonde hair instead. For an imagined second, he'd spot a glimpse of her striding purposely through the camp, as though it were a kingdom filled with her subjects. It might have been, once. Now it was just a dirty, desolate hole. When it was dry out, clouds of red dust hung in the air and coated their skin. When it rained, mud formed in trenches around the fence. How he hated fences, those roofless cages.

But here, a two days' walk from the camp, the trees went up forever. There was mutant birdsong in the branches and bars of sunlight slotting through the leaves to the ground below. Bellamy moved forward, relentless as Hannibal over the Alps, careful with his footing. He had swapped his guard uniform for the familiar black leather of his tattered old jacket, but he'd kept the new boots. The gun Abby had given him swung freely from his right hand.

"Find Clarke," was all she'd said as she committed her biweekly treason, pressing the automatic rifle into his arms and letting him out the gate. The Council had agreed three months ago that Clarke had wandered off to her death and that no resources could be spared to find her. Anyone who cared to investigate would assume Bellamy was running the usual patrol, checking the mile radius of the forest surrounding the camp and reporting back concerning the Grounders' movements.

The whole assignment was a joke anyway, so it didn't matter that he wasn't following anyone's orders now. No one had seen a Grounder since the attack on Mount Weather, Clarke was dead, and that was that.

A branch snapped on the ridge above him, and Bellamy swung his gun up onto his shoulder in one fluid motion, his sights trained on the small, dark figure crouched there.

Octavia was frozen in place, nearly invisible among the brush. One hand was up, cautioning him, and the other hefted her spear. She'd broken the twig on purpose to get his attention. Much as he felt the need to protect his sister, he had yet to regret bringing her along. He froze and listened. The birds had stopped trilling. And now, distantly, he heard footsteps. Someone was coming.

Snapping the sights back down to the trees in front of him, Bellamy felt the familiar course of adrenaline surge through him. Maybe today would actually be interesting.

The sound of footsteps increased, and fern leaves began to rustle a hundred yards ahead. Octavia stood slowly, lowering the point of her spear. Bellamy's eyes flitted nervously from the crosshairs of his gun to her alert profile.

"Octavia," he growled, not liking the way her dark head was silhouetted against patches of sky. She was such an easy target up there, so visible and so small. 

"Relax, Big Brother," she said in a normal voice, sliding down the ridge and coming to a controlled stop by his side. "They're not bothering to hide their steps, now are they?" When he still didn't lower the gun, she placed her hand on the barrel and pushed it down. "It's Lincoln, stupid."

Sure enough, as the leaves parted, Lincoln's imposing figure strode into view, his dark skin streaked with mud and a cloak of moss across his shoulders. He'd been scouting, then. Octavia ran to meet him, the quickness of her steps betraying her enthusiasm. It had been weeks since they had seen Lincoln. Now neither of them had a reason to return to camp.

Bellamy ducked his head and stared down at the butt of his gun as Lincoln and Octavia pressed their foreheads together. He heard their whispered words.

" _Ai hod yu in,_ " Lincoln murmured, and the obvious tenderness in his voice twisted like a knife in Bellamy's chest. Clarke's exhausted face flashed before him briefly, her last words to him,  _May we meet again,_  drumming along with his heartbeat. He swallowed hard and glanced up.

"Hey, Lincoln," he called. Lincoln looked up from Octavia's face and his eyes were dark and glittering.

"Men," he said, by way of greeting. "Outliers not from my clan, about two miles north and just beyond the bridge.  _Branwoda_  soldiers, though, and only a few. Not a problem to take out."

"Where's the rest of them?" Octavia asked, her brow furrowed. "Are they scouts?"

Lincoln shook his head curtly. "No. Dissenters. Or exiles. The twelve clans are coming apart. War is inevitable."

"Against Camp Jaha or between the clans?" Octavia demanded shrewdly. 

Lincoln's large shoulders rolled in a shrug that said it all. "It could go either way. Lexa will have to make a choice."

Hearing the name of the traitor commander made Bellamy's nostrils flare. When he swallowed, his Adam's apple felt like a stone in his throat. He kicked the point of his gun up and swung it onto his shoulder, rocking back a little with the weight of it.

"Then now seems like the perfect time for a fight."

****************** 

They approached the Grounders' makeshift camp from the southeast, spreading out as they reached the high ground. Octavia was in the middle of the semicircle, with Bellamy and Lincoln flanking her. The sun was beginning to be crowded out by clouds, but thin beams of light were still punching through the leafy stillness of the forest. Bellamy got into position, nestling down into a crouch with the scope of his gun over the lip of the ridge and his hip resting firmly against a towering cedar. 

Below, there were only five men, speaking in loud Trigedasleng. The crackling flames of their fire threw shadows along the bowl of the ridge, and Bellamy was surprised to find his nerves calm. He'd missed this--having a purpose, having something to  _do_. Lincoln was in position opposite, wedged between two trees. Bellamy watched him draw his bow, pull the string taut.

" _Lok op der!_ " came the shout as the arrow was released. It flew true, but the men were already scrambling, and it hit the dirt with a thud, just inches shy of its target. Bellamy raised his weapon, and stopped in cold horror as a spray of bullets raked the ridge where Lincoln had stood.

_Grounders? With guns?_

"Lincoln!" Octavia shouted, her voice a knife's edge. She streaked along the side of the ridge, toward the falling shadows of the trees. Bellamy found himself standing almost without realizing it, a hoarse cry snatched from his throat. Two of the men below whirled and surged his way, their faces sharp and dangerous in the mixed light of fractured sunshine and harsh flames. One raised a rifle to his shoulder. His heels sliding out from under him, Bellamy stumbled backward and in that moment the solid weight of the cedar behind him fell away. A hand reached out and snatched him by the collar, pulling him into the thick dark hollow of the tree.

_They have guns_ , he thought numbly as he thrashed against his captor.  _They have guns and they're hiding in hollowed-out trees. Damn the Ground._ He reached for his knife and found the polished hilt in his belt. He tried to pull it free and knocked his elbow hard into the tree trunk instead. A spike of panic shot through him. A leg tangled in his and a strong hand closed over his wrist. Twisting in the claustrophobic confines, he dropped the blade and aimed for a desperate blow instead. There wasn't enough space, the walls were scraping his shoulders as he turned. He found a neck instead, and his hand closed hard around it, forcing a sudden stillness. The world stopped moving.

For a long moment, there was only the sound of their hard breathing, impossibly loud in his ears. The spicy scent of cedar floated in the cramped air. The hidden door had closed in the scuffle and there was no room to move. It was utterly dark except for a thin beam of sunlight falling on his arm through a crack in the bark. The Grounder who'd grabbed him was small and easy to hold in place, the bones within his grasp as fragile as a bird's.

"Where the hell did you get guns?" he demanded in a rough whisper.

" _Yu souda shof op_ ," a tight, female voice rasped.

"Where did you get them and why are you  _using_  them?" he nearly shouted, feeling the small, breakable shape of her with his body and pressing it hard against the wall of the tree. 

"I said, be quiet!" she hissed, her small hand worming up between them to cover his mouth. With a grunt, she forced his head back. The crack of light cut across her pale face and her wide blue eyes.

It was Clarke.

 

He was in the vacuum of space. The air had disappeared from his lungs and sounds had receded to nothing. There was no room to move, but he started to anyway. The pressure of her fingers against his mouth stopped him. She cut her eyes sideways and he became aware of the world just outside the layers of bark. There were grunting voices, orders in Grounder, and the thick  _whump_  of heavy footsteps. The Grounders were surrounding the trees, swinging through the foliage.

His eyes were adjusting to the dark now and he could see the outline of her, the cascade of her blonde hair, the curve of her neck. She'd grown thinner in the last months, her cheeks hollowed, but she was alive. Her eyes were still locked on his, and in the close quarters her steady gaze was as naked and intimate as a kiss. He was suddenly aware of the way his thigh was jammed hard between her legs, the jut of her hipbone nearly pressed against his groin. Her chest rose and fell with his, and he could feel the hammering of her heart through the thin T-shirt she wore.

His hand was still pressed against her windpipe and he relaxed his grip, felt the bones in her throat bob up and down as she breathed deeply in response, but he couldn't let her go. Instead, he slid his hand around to cup the back of her neck, his thumb brushing the soft curve of her cheek. She responded ever so slightly, turning her face into his palm as though starved for the touch. His touch.

With his other hand, he reached up and, with careful purpose, peeled her fingers back one by one from his lips. With exaggerated motions, he held her gaze and mouthed,  _It's you._

A smile broke the wintry tightness in her expression and her eyes crinkled at the corners with a kind of joy that twisted in that painful spot in his chest.  _We meet again,_ she mouthed in reply.

It was impossible to fight the smile that crept along his lips so he just shook his head and grinned, reveling in the sight of her, the solid feel of her so near him again. When he smiled, he felt her pulse spike against his hand, and her body seemed to go soft where it touched him. She shifted her hips forward, just fractionally, and at the brief brush of her thigh against his crotch, he found himself suddenly, painfully hard. He startled backwards out of instinct, but there was nowhere to go. His shoulder bumped the makeshift door, and the bark entrance shifted away from the rest of the tree, just enough to let in another half inch of light. Her eyes eloquent with panic, Clarke grasped him by the belt with both hands and hauled him up hard against her.

"Ah!  _Ai don hon gon op!_ "

The voice was just outside their hiding space now. Bellamy could see through the newly expanded slice of light that the Grounder was rummaging around in the grass near the roots of their tree. He hadn't spotted them yet, but if he looked up, he'd meet Bellamy's gaze head-on. Bellamy turned his face away and rested his forehead against Clarke's upturned brow, squeezing his eyes shut and waiting for the Grounder to move on. The rustling continued, and the seconds seeped by.

Bellamy and Clarke breathed shallow breaths together, frozen in place. Every one of his muscles was wound tight with some damned tension or another. Clarke's breath was hot on his cheek, and he stroked the edge of her jaw softly with his thumb to count the time. There was a pressure mounting in him, an ache that the curve of her body had awakened. He opened one eye and looked down at where their bodies were joined. Her fingers were still twisted in his belt loops, holding his hips firmly against hers, and neither of them could ignore the bulge of his cock straining against his pants now. The whole hard length of him was pressed against her and she was holding him in place. 

The man outside could go float himself.

Bellamy's gaze flitted back up to meet Clarke's and he realized she was watching him with that hard, amused smile she had when she was being tough but life was still funny. Her narrowed blue eyes danced. He made his expression a shrug, raising his eyebrows helplessly.

_Sorry, Princess,_  he mouthed.

In response, she arched her back, just a little, just enough. His breath caught in his throat and his erection pulsed hard against the hot junction of her thighs. Her breathing became heavy and jagged in the stillness, but she didn't look away. Her eyes were searching his desperately now, and he wanted to give her whatever she was looking for. Keeping her jaw cupped in his palm, he placed his free hand against the tree on the other side of her head and pushed himself into her soft, yielding body, exhaling raggedly as his groin tightened with desire. The death grip she'd had on his belt loops slackened slightly, and a whimper loosened her throat. Bellamy felt a shiver tingle up his spine as the tips of her fingers slid under his shirt and across his burning skin. Her thumbs dipped below his waistband to brush tentatively against the wells of his hipbones and he sucked in a sharp breath. His eyes drifted shut, his control slipping away--

" _Nou mou!"_

The guttural growl of the Grounder jarred them apart. The man outside straightened and froze in place, his keen, hawkish face raised in the air. For a long moment he seemed to sniff the air, but then, without even glancing their way, he broke into a run and loped away. As he flashed by their cover, a glimpse of black metal whisked past their view. 

It took Bellamy a long, muddled moment, but then it clicked. Dropping his hand from Clarke's face, he groped around at waist height, fumbling in the dark.

"Bellamy, what is it?" Her voice was raw and husky.

He didn't answer her. There wasn't that much space in the tree with them, so his search didn't take long. Shoving his shoulder against the bark hatch, he barreled out into the dim and shivering afternoon.

After the tight confines of the cedar, the world was bursting with fresh air, air on the brink of a storm now, and Bellamy gulped it down. 

"Bellamy!" Clarke hissed, following him out.

"My gun's not here, Clarke! You left it on the ground!" He searched fruitlessly, raking his boot across the grass, but the weapon was gone.

Her voice was impatient. "I know that. I didn't want you to have it."

He whirled on her. She stood, leaning against the tree, her arms crossed, as though completely immune to his urgency. A ragged backpack that looked dangerously slim was slung at her feet. He was surprised to see her not wearing a uniform, or even a jacket. He'd spent months imagining her clad in that terrifying armor and streaked with war paint. But she was wearing only a thin shirt, pants, and boots. Her golden hair hung in loose waves over her shoulders.

He took a second to process.

"You didn't want me to have a  _gun_?" He thrust his finger sharply at the figures retreating through the woods. "Clarke, those bastards are after my  _sister_. And they're using guns now."

"Your sister can take care of herself."

He shrugged her words off and reached for the pistol still strapped in its holster. 

"I don't have time for this," he said cuttingly.

Shaking his dark curls out of his eyes, he dropped to one knee and raised the weapon to target the last figure weaving through the trees.

"Bellamy,  _no_!" In a flash, she'd launched herself from her post and flung herself in front of him. "You can't."

"Clarke," he warned, cocking his head to look past her. "Get out of my way."

She stood her ground. "You can't shoot them."

He arched an eyebrow, determined to keep his cool, but when he locked gazes with her again he could feel the deep heat smoldering there.

"I thought I told you, I don't take orders from you, Princess," he reminded her evenly.

She stepped forward, one large stride that forced his pistol against her sternum, just above the deep valley of her breasts. He could feel the point digging into her flesh, the hard metal pressed against the bone. The diffused light behind her head threw her face into shadow but lit her hair up like a golden halo. She rested her hand on his forearm, and her skin was warm against his.

"Then do it because I'm asking you," she said softly. "Please."

He glared up at her, his breath coming short and hard from his nose, but she didn't waver. Over her shoulder, the figure faded into the foliage and disappeared. Bellamy lowered the gun.

"Can I assume you have a plan at least?" he demanded, rising to his feet and holstering his pistol. 

A thin smile played around her lips. "I never leave the tree without one."

He huffed out a breath, trying to hold onto his indignation, but it came out as a gruff laugh and he had to look up and away to reassemble his composure. She wouldn't let him. With a delighted snort that momentarily betrayed her youth, she grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to her. His arms slid automatically around her back as hers looped around his neck, and he nearly lifted her off her feet.

The clouds were gathering over the trees, leaching sunlight from the day, and they stood there a long moment in the gathering gloom. He hugged her tightly, letting his eyes close as he buried his face in her hair. She smelled soft and loamy, like cedar and earth. Her lips were pressed tightly against his neck. He ran his palms up and down her spine, reveling in the feel of her wrapped so closely around him. 

"I missed you," she said, the words hot on his skin.

" _Ai hod yu in,_ " he breathed softly, echoing Lincoln's words. It was the only thing he could think of to convey the immense pressure building in his chest, the insurmountable relief at her appearance. She pulled back to arm's length, her brow furrowed, her eyes searching his face.

"What did you say?"

He was saved the trouble of an explanation when a sudden, strangled cry sounded in the direction the Grounders had taken. Bellamy dropped his arms and pushed her away, all his senses on high alert. A plume of red smoke had bloomed in the trees and was seeping along the forest floor.

"The hell is that? Clarke, is that from...?"

He glanced down at Clarke and was surprised to see a small smile curling the corner of her mouth.

"Nope," she said slyly. "That would be me." And she turned in one fluid motion, snatched up her backpack, and sprinted for the trees.

***********************

It was good to run. After more than an hour holed up in that cramped space, Clarke had been itching for some action. If Bellamy hadn't come along and introduced a new kind of action...

_Stop it, Clarke. This doesn't change anything._

She shook her head to clear it, whipping through the branches and dancing over protruding roots. Her plans had gotten...derailed. Now she'd have to hunt the Grounders down one by one, but they wouldn't get very far. She'd made sure of that.

The smoke had dissipated by the time she reached the scene, and three Grounders were sprawled out over branches and in the dirt, deeply unconscious. Clarke surveyed them all with satisfaction, her hands on her hips. Bellamy broke through the brush a second later, breathing hard, his hand on the butt of his pistol. His large, dark eyes roamed the clearing, then flitted to her face. She'd nearly forgotten about the constellation of freckles that dusted his cheekbones. Damn. She could see angry confusion warring with his usual attempt to remain sardonically cool. 

"What the hell is this?" he demanded in a gravelly tone. He reached down near their feet, where red tendrils of smoke were still issuing sluggishly from a spigot protruding inches from the earth. He gave it a tug and worked it free until the whole canister of knock-out gas slid out of the ground. He brushed the dirt loose. "Clarke, what are you doing?"

"I'm protecting Camp Jaha," she replied, more aggressively than she'd intended. Taking the depleted can from him, she shrugged off her backpack and knelt near the closest body. 

"You took that crap from Mount Weather? You brought back their  _weapons_?"

His words hammered at the little cracks left in her armor. She ignored the onslaught. There were no good guys left. Emotions were weakness. "I brought a lot of things back from Mount Weather," she snapped. "Besides, why do you think there haven't been any Grounder attacks on Camp Jaha in the last three months?"

He shook his shaggy head, and dark tendrils of hair fell over his face. She wanted to brush them aside, look into his eyes, make him see what she already knew. "The truce--" he started, before stopping himself abruptly. His lips twisted, and she stared down at her pack before opening the zipper with a sharp tug.

"The truce is dead.  _I'm_  keeping our people safe now. And I have to do it from afar. After what I did--"

"After what  _we_  did," he interrupted, his voice gentler now. He squatted down next to her and brushed his fingers tentatively through the curtain of her hair, drawing it away from her face and tucking the strands behind her ear. She glanced at him. His eyes were soft, concerned. One hand still rested on the butt of his pistol. "So what now? What are you doing? Killing them off one by one when they get too close?"

She reached out and placed her hand over his where it was resting on his holster. Overhead, thunder cleared its throat. After a moment, Bellamy unclenched his fingers and Clarke removed her hand, her palm sliding down the hard muscles of his thigh. He glanced down pointedly and then back up, his eyes looking to her for something she couldn't give. Back in the tree, maybe, in the dark. But here...

_Don't let him distract you from what you have to do._

She returned her attention to her pack. "Just killing the Grounders doesn't stop them. They're not afraid of death. It's basically an invitation to go to war. That'd be an easy way for Lexa to redirect their anger."

His brow furrowed. "Their anger? At what?"

Clarke sighed. "Bellamy, their people were captured, tortured, and turned into Reapers. They were killed by the dozens, by the _hundreds_. They're angry at the Mountain Men. And Lexa cut a deal with them and then  _we killed them_. They hate us for taking away their chance for retribution. Well, us and Lexa." It was petty, but part of Clarke was glad that Lexa hadn't gotten away with it all so easily. The young woman's role as commander was as tenuous as it had ever been. "They can't get revenge. They can only get..."

Bellamy nodded. "Us." His lips were pressed together in a thin, hard line, impatient and raring to go. "So what, then?"  _What do we do?_  He was asking her. As though they could be a team again. As though she hadn't learned to work alone.

She drew a large syringe out of the front of her pack and stood up, holding the needle aloft. She examined it with cool dispassion. "You have to keep them afraid."

Bellamy rocked back a little on his heels but remained in a crouch, rubbing one hand across his mouth as he watched her. He made no move to stand, and his lips seemed to lock around whatever it was he was going to say. She could see the questions burning behind his eyes. She'd forgotten that he wasn't always a man who flew off half-cocked, who fought every problem with a hot head and hard fists. He could be still and patient as a mountain cat. Watchful. Trusting. 

"Show me," he said.

There was no pleasure in the act, but there was a certain satisfaction. The nearest man was already laid out on his back in a bed of leaves. She pulled back the plunger of the syringe and watched it suck in nothing but air. Finding the artery in the Grounder's bulging arm was easy. The needle slid in without resistance.

" _Yu gonplei ste odon,_ " she whispered.

She gave the man 40 ml of gray sky. Then another, finding a different vein on the other arm. Then another. Then another. Until his breathing grew raspy and short, and his lips turned blue. He started to seize. She turned away to the next man. Rain began to patter through the leaves and fall softly on the ground, her cold hands, her victims' pallid skin.

At some point, she looked up to see Bellamy watching her carefully, his eyes following her every movement. She could feel some anger mounting  in him by the way he swung to his feet, the way he prowled along the perimeter, surveying the scene but not entering it. He didn't interrupt her, but his eyes were racing over her face and hands as she worked. The sharp angle of his jaw was clenched tightly. When she was done, she stood and faced him.

"At first I tried injecting them with the drug they used to create the Reapers," she said in a controlled voice, as though explaining it rationally could make it better. "I just wanted to make the area unsafe for them. I wanted them to be afraid of this place. But it makes them wild. You can't control them after just one dose."

"So this..." He gestured with revulsion at the splayed-out men, their thrashing, twitching limbs gradually settling into piles of stirred-up leaves, subsiding into nothing.

"It's an air embolism. It blocks passage to the brain and heart and all you need is a needle. I change the entry point for each one so that the Grounders don't recognize the cause of death. Getting them down is a little harder. I set up the gas canisters so that they activate with pressure--like a minefield. The Grounders are blind to any traps that aren't their own. They stumble into them every time and get knocked out. Then I come in with this." She waved the empty syringe for emphasis. "I leave the bodies for them to find."

Bellamy's nostrils flared and he stared down at the ground, swallowing hard. When he looked back up, he shook his head at her. The rain was coming down harder now, weaving through the branches and dripping from the tips of his hair. The droplets tracked dark paths through the dust on his face. 

_I'm a monster,_  he'd said to her once after inadvertently causing death. What must he think of her now, dispatching people with cold calculation?

The bodies on the ground stilled and the forest was quiet save for the needles of rain pattering the earth. She waited for him to speak. The moment stretched thin. Bellamy worked his lips but said nothing.

"We should go," she said finally. "I have a place that's safe."

He lifted his head. His eyes were far away. "I...can't," he said finally, giving himself a little shake as though trying to rid himself of a troubling notion. "I have to...I have to find Octavia. She's out in the forest with two Grounders after her."

"It's about to pour, tracking will be impossible, and you'll freeze out here," Clarke reminded him, trying to swallow her disappointment when he didn't even shift. Part of her had wanted to let him in on her plan, to draw from his strength and his ever-burning passion for a good fight. But, no. It was better this way, knowing that he wanted nothing to do with her, with what she had become. She turned away. "Well," she said flatly. "You're welcome at the bunker if you change your mind."

She hooked her pack onto her shoulder and headed into the trees, hoping he would follow her, fearful that he might. She made it only a dozen yards before he caught up with her, his hand closing over her elbow and twisting her around.

"Clarke..."

She swallowed hard, looking up to meet his conflicted gaze. "Look, I..." He ran his tongue between his lips, wetting them for words that died unspoken. "I don't care what you've done to survive out here." He gestured with agitation at the bodies behind them. "Take some Grounders out, fine, however you want to do, I don't care. It's just..." He gazed with a singular ferocity at her mouth, as though deeply torn. She waited, but nothing further came. After a moment, he shook his head, a bemused smile making a slow spread across his lean face. She'd forgotten how his smile curled into deep dimples, how it loosened the muscles in her belly.

She felt her face grow warm. "What?"

"I..." he chuffed an exasperated laugh, glancing down at the ground and then back up. "I just want you to be smart, Clarke. I just want you...alive."

 _Keep it together, Clarke, nothing has changed._ "Don't worry about that," she said evenly. "Everything's different now."

He studied her for a moment before nodding, breaking her gaze and tilting his chin at the trees. "Then lead on, Princess."


	2. Request

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Man, all this plot has really been getting in the way of the porn.
> 
> Also, is Clarke's watch functional? Does anyone know? If not, I hope that tiny anachronism does not ruin your experience of pent-up sexual tension.

The walk to Clarke's bunker was a quiet one. The skies opened up and the sound of rain washed everything else out. It soaked through Clarke's thin shirt and plastered her hair to her head. Bellamy moved staunchly through it, his weapon holstered but all of his muscles tense. The drumming rain pooled in the creases of his jacket and ran in rivulets down his face.

There was something reassuring in knowing that Clarke was still fighting, still protecting her people. But Bellamy found himself unnerved at the dispassionate way she did it. He remembered her the day they had tortured Lincoln. She had participated then, but on her knees, with tears in her eyes.

A fork of lightning flashed, lighting up the slick branches overhead. Bellamy reached for his rifle automatically, but of course it wasn't there. The reminder of its absence annoyed him. He flicked his wet hair away from his face. "So the Grounders are fighting with our weapons now. The hell is that about?"

Clarke moved easily through the brush, her eyes scanning the trees with every step. "It's because Mount Weather is gone," she said calmly. "The fear of reprisal--that was the only thing keeping the Trikru from picking up guns. They know Mount Weather is empty now. They're not afraid anymore."

Bellamy picked his way along a trail of puddles, trying to find the firm ground with the side of his foot. "And you're running around out here by yourself with nothing but a damn needle. You're going to get yourself killed." He blew water off the tip of his nose and shook his head. "You can't fight them all, you know." 

He was so used to his sister, or even Raven, who would give him the finger and a "Screw you, Bellamy" for a comment like that. But Clarke was different. She turned her head and gave him that patient look with a down-turned mouth that always seemed to say,  _If not me, then who?_

Ducking his head, he shrugged mildly. "Or, hell, I don't know, maybe you can." She smiled at his concession, just faintly, and warmth bloomed in Bellamy's chest.

Coming to a stop, Clarke turned and gestured the way that they'd come, where the foliage was awash in a thin gray scrim of rain. "That section of woods I patrol is the last bit before you get to the bridge. It's the only way for large groups of Grounders to make it to Camp Jaha," she explained. "If I blow the bridge, it's war. If I kill them with guns, it's war. If I--"

"Make it seem like they'll die mysterious deaths every time they go to that part of the woods, it's fear," he interrupted, nodding his understanding. "It's like the acid fog. You're conditioning them to avoid the camp. The way the Mountain Men did."

He couldn't keep the accusation from his voice. It wasn't that she was wrong, necessarily, it was just so damn unsettling. She was supposed to be the voice of reason, of compassion. 

He gave her a sidelong glance. Raindrops fell between them, slid like tears down her cheeks, but her eyes were dry. She set her mouth and made no response. He swung a leg over a wet, mossy log at waist height and hoisted himself over it. He didn't pause and wait for her, so she ducked under it, caught up with him doggedly.

"You think I've lost it." After all her cool demeanor, he could finally hear the concern burring her voice. "You think I'm becoming one of them."

"I think you've been working alone for too long," he said honestly, glancing down and appraising her frankly. She looked so fierce and so exhausted, with her pale skin gleaming through the mud streaked across her face. He wanted to tell her she'd be all right, that it would all turn out fine. But they had both learned a long time ago that that wasn't true. "You're not the Mountain Men," he reminded her roughly, instead. "And you're not the Grounders."

"You don't know that." Her voice had a desperate edge. "Maybe that's what we all become eventually, if we want to survive." 

Her eyes were wide and earnest, a washed-out blue beneath the layers of rain. He couldn't argue the point. He'd never believed anything else.

They reached a clearing in the trees where the rain thundered down in unencumbered sheets. Clarke nodded ahead at a cluster of moss-covered stones; beneath them, barely visible, was the entrance to her bunker. Even after leaving the Ark, the whole lot of them had somehow never gotten away from tiny metal coffins. Bellamy followed her gaze and nodded, taking the lead.

It took him a dozen steps to realize she wasn't behind him. He turned, curious, seeking her out at the treeline.

"You go ahead," she said, not quite meeting his eyes. She rubbed her arms vigorously, as though trying to regain feeling there. "I'll be right in."

There was water pooling in his ears and his feet were blocks of ice, but there was something in her voice... 

He stared at her hard, until she shifted her feet and turned her head away. "No, you won't," he murmured huskily. He ghosted a humorless laugh, incredulous. "You're leaving, aren't you?" The rain lashed against his face, and his voice raised above the wind without any effort. He took an aggressive step forward. "Aren't you?"

She crossed her hands over her elbows, as though trying to keep something in, or maybe to ward him off. She lowered her chin to her collarbone. He'd never seen her look so defeated. "There's a Trikru camp not too far from here and it's...well, there's just something I have to do there," she said, lifting her heels and staring at the soft, sucking muck beneath her. "I just wanted to make sure you were safe before..." She trailed off.

Bellamy tipped his head back to the punishing sky and gave a groan of frustration. "To hell with that!" he cried. "Take me with you! If you're killing Grounders, I want to  _be_  there. I've got your back." He took a step toward her, and stopped at her expression.

She gave him the same sad eyes, the same tilt of the head that she had had when Atom was caught in the acid fog. The expression that said with authoritative finality,  _I'm sorry. There's no way._

"I'm not trying to start a war, Bellamy," she said patiently. "I'm still trying to stop one."

His throat was raw. "What aren't you telling me?" He took one step forward and she moved one step back, as though ready to melt into the trees. "Clarke, what do you know?"

She was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was strained. "I've been listening in. The men I've been killing, they're just the tip of the spear. Lexa is caving to pressure from her generals--she has to give them something, some sort of, I don't know, outlet. They're going to march on Camp Jaha soon." She finally looked up, meeting his eyes miserably. "Bellamy, they'll burn it to the ground."

A long moment where the only sound was the war drum of the rain. Bellamy fought the blood singing in his ears, strove for calm, and failed. "So, what, you're going to take on all of the Grounders yourself?" he demanded. He ran his fingers through his wet curls, shaking loose a spray of water. 

She gave a hesitant nod. "Tomorrow. There's a meeting. Lexa will be there. And so will her second."

Curiosity won the battle against his baffled fury. "So?" He took another halting step in her direction. 

"The Trikru pass leadership from a commander to a second via reincarnation. If Lexa dies while fighting us, her soul will go into one of her own people. So the commander chooses a vessel for reincarnation before a big battle. There's a ritual that binds them. After that, the vessel is hidden away for the whole battle, or even a war, so that there's a clear replacement if the commander dies. It keeps her generals from trying to grab power by claiming to be her reincarnated form."

Bellamy thought he would have gotten used to fear by now. His heart was beginning to race, and his next words were low and painful. "Clarke," he growled, running his tongue over his lips. "What the hell are you planning?" 

She stared dully into the stinging rain. "Tomorrow's the day they perform the ritual. After that, Lexa rides to war and the vessel disappears to somewhere hidden. So tomorrow, after the ritual is complete, I'll sneak into the camp and I'll..." Clarke swallowed hard, the bones in her throat working up and down. "I'll kill them both with weapons I took from other dead clansmen." 

Bellamy shook his head, not sure if he was infuriated, impressed, or some mixture of the two. "Right, right, right. If they're both dead, there's no Grounder commander, and then all the heads of all the other tribes start fighting over who's boss."

Clarke stared at the ground, her eyes on the pools forming in the mud. "Civil war."

Bellamy studied the brave young woman before him, the teenager whose brilliant strategies and charisma had made children, chancellors, and Grounders alike follow her to hell and back. He wet his lips and chose his next words carefully. 

"That is the stupidest plan I've ever heard."

She gave a snort of surprised laughter, her eyes softening at the edges. "I'd forgotten how eloquent your counterpoints can be," she mocked. 

She was needling him on purpose to try and push him away, and he wasn't going to let her. He reached behind his hip, his palm settling over the familiar curve of his pistol. "Fine. You'll need someone to--"

"Bellamy--"  

He lifted his head sharply, meeting her gaze dead-on through the shifting rain."If you go, I go," he said firmly.

She shook her head slowly, her smile fading to weariness. "No. This is the plan. I've mapped it all out--I'll be in and out. It's safer that way."

The finality in her tone stung. "If you're caught--" he said haltingly.

"I know. That's why I need you to head back to Camp Jaha and get our people ready. In case I don't come back."

"You can't expect me to just run back there with my tail between my legs."

"I don't," she stated with perfect confidence. "I expect you to go back there and rally our people with one of your incredibly charismatic speeches. You can make them scared for their lives. More importantly, you can make them brave enough to fight."

Lightning flashed overhead, illuminating her narrowed eyes, her matted hair.  She was soaked all the way through and shivering, but he couldn't seem to go to her. He cast about for something to say, but all he could settle on was:

"Why?"

The one word seemed to encompass everything. 

She shrugged helplessly, her voice heavy with the weight of it all. "I tried to be the good guy, but this world won't let me. There are no good guys. So this is what I have to do." 

"You don't," he said, low and forceful, leaning forward, still straining against something that held him in place. "You don't have to." 

She looked so weary. "What else am I going to do?"

He surveyed her gravely. "You can leave."

She shook her head, thick ropes of her hair sticking wetly to the side of her neck. "Where?" 

He'd forgotten how infuriating she could be. He gestured expansively. "Wherever! You can come with me and Octavia. Let Camp Jaha take care of itself for once in your damn life. They have guns, they have bombs, they have a chancellor, who--guess what--isn't you!" He stabbed a finger in the direction of the camp. "They don't want our protection anymore. You don't have to save everyone."

"Bellamy..." Her voice was tired, defeated.

He looked down and kicked the toe of his boot at a thick clump of mud, at war with himself. How was it that his powers of persuasion had never, ever worked on her?

"Don't do this," he muttered, and raised his eyes to hers. "Please, Clarke. I...I need you with me."

The confession came out a little broken, a little too raw. The thundering in his ears was from more than just the pounding rain. He saw the effect it had on her--the press of her lips and the way her throat tightened.

She looked away. "I'm sorry. I can't." 

The dark was gathering behind the clouds. Her rejection hung, barbed and painful between them. Bellamy took a slow, exaggerated step toward her, into her space, so that the toes of their boots lined up inches apart. He settled his hand on the nape of her neck and she jumped a little at his touch. The rain caught in the dark locks of his hair as he leaned over her so that suddenly the droplets weren't on their faces and the sound of the rain was muted. 

"Okay," he said softly. He ran his thumb over the wet, muddy side of her neck. "Okay, listen. We'll go back. Together. You and me. We'll let everyone know that the Grounders are coming. We'll help them prepare."

She met his gaze with that stubborn set to her mouth that drove him crazy. "No. I can do this. I can  _stop_  this." 

Damn her. She had always put the group first--ahead of him, ahead of herself. And it was going to get her killed. The knife in his chest wrenched more painfully than it ever had at the certainty of the thought. He felt his lips twist.

"You're out of your damn mind, Clarke." She flinched. He shoved himself away from her, leaving her stumbling under the flicker of lightning above them. He turned his back on her, waving one hand in the air. "I'm going inside. Do whatever the hell you want."

*******************************

Clarke stood in the pouring rain for five minutes after Bellamy went into the bunker, staring at the cold metal, willing her numb feet to move away. After all, she was on a deadline. Ten minutes passed. Fifteen. Darkness set. She couldn't get him out of her head--the way he just stood there under the downpour, tall and lean as a bad decision, mud-spattered and unbent by the world but still looking to her for answers. 

_Please, Clarke. I need you with me_. She'd never seen that expression on him before. Nearly embarrassed, a flash of lightning illuminating every stark freckle on his rain-washed face. She shifted the straps of her backpack on her shoulders. She could be dead tomorrow. 

She glanced behind her into the dense knot of trees, then down at her father's watch around her wrist. "Not yet," she whispered. She knelt and twisted the metal ring. It squealed but didn't catch. Still unlocked. She lifted the hatch and went inside.

The heat hit her as she was halfway down the ladder, the metal rungs warm against her tingling palms. She hit the floor and wasn't quite sure how to turn around, how to face him. Dropping her bag on the ground, she stood for a long moment and flexed her red, numbed digits, staring at her feet where a widening pool of water was collecting.

She turned at the sound of his voice, abrasive and rough. "No use coming in and out. All the heat will escape."

He had lit half a dozen candles in the small room and they threw dim, orange shadows across the wall. There was only a bed next to the ladder, a chipped metal basin set into the far wall at waist height, and an open closet in the corner where she had piled all the supplies from Mount Weather. Bellamy was hunched over the basin with his back to her, wringing out his wet clothes.

Clarke's mouth went dry at the sight of him. He was naked save for a pair of black shorts that hung low on his lean hips. The thin material clung to his muscular thighs. In the flickering light, she could see the smooth expanse of his back, marred by dark, blooming bruises and jagged, half-healed scars. She took a step into the room.

He tossed a look over his shoulder. "I thought you had to go." She nodded mutely. The tight muscle in his jaw jumped, the way it always did when he was clenching his teeth. "So what do you want?"

She had no answer to that. She wanted a lot of things.

He straightened up and turned around, letting his pants and shirt drop into a wet heap at his feet. Even nearly naked, he didn't seem self-conscious. He had shaken some of the water from his hair and now it was a mass of damp curls, falling carelessly over his face. He folded his arms and leaned insolently against the basin, his dark eyes glittering dangerously in the candlelight.

"I won't tell you not to go," he informed her flatly.

"I'm not asking you to."

He seemed not to hear her. "I'm not that guy. I'm not going to talk you down." 

She found her voice. "That's not why I'm here. I just...before I leave, I wanted to..."

He arched an eyebrow. "What?"

She took a deep breath and settled her shoulders. "I just wanted to say that I've been out here alone for a long time now. And I've had this plan for almost a week and it's scared me, Bellamy, and--" Her voice cracked a little, and at the sound of it he dropped his arms and straightened up, a ripple of concern crossing his brow. The flames rose in their cups, making the nut-brown skin on his bare chest gleam. Clarke cleared her throat. "--and I just keep reminding myself of why I have to do it. Even if it kills me, I have to protect the people I love. Everyone I care about is a reason to go through with it. My mom, Marcus, Raven, Jasper, Monty..." She trailed off, forced herself to keep looking at him. "Everyone. Except you."

Silence settled in the bunker. The rain sounded against the hatch outside and the only things that moved were the shadows on the wall. Then Bellamy stepped toward her, deliberately, his bare feet soft on the concrete floor. He moved like a panther, all sinewy muscle and slow, lithe movements. With the shift of his hips she could see the outline of his cock against the thin fabric of his shorts. She swallowed hard.

"Clarke." 

She looked up. He was halfway to her. The raw, bare presence of him seemed to fill the cramped room. His eyes darted back and forth between hers, then flicked down to her lips.

"Why not me?" She had never heard his voice so low and so rough.

"Because," she whispered, her voice catching. "You're the one thing that makes me want to stay."

He crossed the distance between them in two long strides. Her vision blurred with tears.

"Bellamy--"

He caught her face and kissed her, hard, crumbling the rest of her words to nothing. The taste of him swept through her like a fire. Her mouth opened under his, a whimper of desire starting in her throat. The sound made him groan, low and ragged. His hands moved up to fist in the wet curls of her hair, pulling her head back so his mouth could take full possession of hers.

His kisses were hungry, desperate, and his tongue slipped between her lips with an urgency that sparked hot arousal in her belly. She snaked her arms around his neck, needing him closer. His bare skin seemed to scorch the numbed flesh of her frozen hands, but she didn't care. She pressed her wet body against him, never before so aware of how much clothing she was wearing, how it chafed her raw skin.

With a groan of distress, he broke off the kiss and stepped back, panting. The rigid lines of his chest and stomach were glistening from her sodden shirt. 

He tugged at the hem. "Get this off," he ordered, the rough gravel bass of his voice vibrating deep in her belly. She tugged the material over her head, kicking off her shoes at the same time. They clattered against the metal bedpost and came to a stop. Her pants dropped next, leaving her stripped to her underwear and bra.

Before she'd even kicked her pants aside, he had moved back into her, the press of his hips shifting her legs apart. She shivered as their bare flesh met--along their naked thighs, bellies, arms. He caught her mouth with his again, his large, rough hands trapping her face, holding her to him. Their legs entangled, they stumbled backwards into the wall until the rungs of the ladder were digging into her shoulders and hips. 

Her arms came together around his narrow waist, her hands sliding beneath the band of his shorts. The feel of his naked skin under her touch sent a flood of arousal through her, and she ground herself against his crotch. She started to slide his shorts down over the taut muscles of his ass.

He pulled away to look at her, his dark, hooded eyes roaming over her face. "Hey now," he murmured. "Easy. We've got time."

_Like hell we do._

Her impatience must have been written all over her face because he smiled at her, the slow, curling, insouciant smile that was all dimples. The smile that made her whole body perk up and take notice. Slowly, deliberately, he leaned in and pressed his open mouth against the sensitive skin along her jaw. She shuddered. She could feel him grin as he dropped his lips to her neck, trailing hot, wet kisses down to her collar bone. Each light brush of his mouth on her skin sent fire coiling in her belly and in between her legs. His fingertips grazed her thigh, then drifted higher to slide lightly over her underwear, one finger brushing along the outline of her swollen lips. She made an inarticulate moan.

Bellamy lowered his lips to her chest, where her breasts were spilling over the cups of her ragged black bra. He brushed soft kisses over each swell, and she felt her nipples harden into stiff, aching points, outlined against the thin cloth. Her breath had become a panting whimper in the back of her throat. His head dipped lower, his hot mouth closing around one pebbled nipple and sucking it between his teeth. The sensation sang like lightning across her nerves. At the same time, his exploring fingers hooked under her panties and pushed them aside. The bare pad of his finger stroked her naked flesh. Clarke let out a strangled cry and bucked her hips against his hand, her body throbbing like a banged thumb.

His tongue began to make slow, maddening circles through her bra. Inside her underwear, his finger slid achingly along her folds. Her hands darted out to clench tightly in his thick, damp hair. He shifted down, onto his knees, and began to place fluttering kisses over her abdomen. She ran his curls through her fingers and tightened her grip, pulling his head back to look at her. She thought he would look pleased with himself, smug even, but his eyes were large and shining--deep, bottomless wells with no guise at all. She realized that his bare chest was heaving as though he had just run a mile with a Grounder on his tail. The intensity of his gaze made her heart twist on its stem.

"What...what are you doing?" she managed.

"I don't think anyone has ever taken their time with you, Clarke," he said tightly, as though he had plans to change that.

_That's because I'm always running out of it,_  she thought. But she didn't say it. Around her wrist, her father's heavy watch ticked grudgingly, reminding her of the seconds sliding away, of the world above turning itself into nightfall.

"I want you," she said instead. She ran her bare foot up the inside of his thigh and brushed her toes against the hard surge of his tented erection. "All of you," she clarified.

He smiled, gently, only the faintest trace of irony curling his wide, beautiful mouth. "Next time," he murmured, pressing his open mouth against her rib cage, slowly kissing his way down each ridge. "Tomorrow."

"Bellamy, I can't--" she started, but trailed off into an  _oh_  of pleasure as his lips reached the elastic barrier of her cotton panties. His fingers curled around the band and lowered it an inch so he could dip his tongue into the well of her hipbone. She gasped and squirmed at the touch, her back arching desperately. He shifted the waistband down another inch so that the soft curl of her hair peeked out over the top. Her fingers were twisting violently in the dark locks at the nape of his neck. He exhaled a sharp, hot breath through the thin screen of her underwear and it lit her up like a torch. She writhed, begging for his touch. Her bare thighs slid against the hard ridges of his collarbone and the powerful muscles of his shoulders, but he kept teasing her, refusing to lower his mouth to her aching center.

"Bellamy..."she panted. "Please..."

The plea unlocked him. With a predatory groan, he yanked her panties to her ankles and buried his face between her legs. A cry jackknifed out of her as his tongue spread her folds and slid up to the hot, tight nub of her clit. All of the breath left her body and she thrust her mound against his mouth, feeling her legs weaken at the soft molding of his lips around her. He pushed her knees apart and drew himself in deeper, licking slowly and steadily until she sagged against the ladder, until his tongue was nearly inside her.

Her legs were losing the ability to keep her upright. Freeing her grip from his dark, shaggy hair, she raised her hands above her head, her fingers seeking out and curling around a metal rung of the ladder. She pulled herself up, the bars bumping against her spine and the bones of her hips. He rose with her, his mouth chasing her, and he moved to let her legs drape over his shoulders, on either side of his neck. His hands came up automatically to curl over the tops of her thighs, holding her in place, supporting her weight.

He pulled his head back, his chin nearly touching the junction of her thighs. His fierce gaze met hers. She was already drowning. The candlelight put orange streaks in his black hair, cast a deep and primal desire in his dark eyes. Without breaking her gaze, he ran the flat of his tongue over her clit, once, twice, making her jerk against his mouth. Automatically, she clenched her thighs so that it stilled his movement. His eyes glittered.

"Okay, Princess," he goaded softly. "Tell me what to do."

She had never experienced anything like this. "Faster," she managed. He pressed his mouth to her hot center and ran his tongue rapidly up and down her wet slit. Her thighs loosened. "Faster," she repeated huskily. He fluttered the tip of his tongue inside her. Her eyes drifted closed and her breath came rapidly. "Faster," she panted, urging him on. "Faster, faster,  _breja, mou snap!_ "

He increased his rhythm, lapping at her steadily so that the hot knot in her belly twisted and tightened. He dropped his grip on one of her thighs and moved his hand under her hips. As he consumed her, he slid one finger back and forth along her wet folds, coating himself in her arousal. When he pushed the rough pad of his fingertip against her entrance, her muscles pulsed and trembled to let him through. His finger slid in effortlessly, pulling a strangled cry from her throat. He began to pump inside her to the rhythm of his mouth. She whimpered, her thighs squeezing his neck. A second finger joined the first, filling the tight walls of her sex.

Her hands clenched around the bars so hard they went numb, her breath coming at a gallop. His tongue lapped at her, coaxing her along, his fingers pistoning in and out. His other hand stroked the bare skin of her thigh before sliding up her side and under her bra. He sought out the bud of her nipple and pinched it hard between thumb and forefinger. 

A hot, tingling surge swept through her, pushing her to the brink. "Bellamy!" she warned, her eyes flying open. He didn't slow down.

"Do it," he rasped, and his lips locked over her clit as he curled his fingers up inside of her.

His raw, husky words pushed her over the edge and she came hard against his mouth, her inner walls clamping down tightly around his pumping fingers. She ground helplessly against his palm, crying out as the wave of her orgasm overwhelmed her.

Her legs loosened and her fingers went slack around the bar. She dropped her arms, but he was already staggering to his feet to support her weight, his hands cupping her ass. He pressed her gently into the ladder as she shuddered against him, his mouth closing over hers in a long, unbroken kiss.

She came down slowly, all of her muscles weak and rubbery. She could taste herself on Bellamy's lips, and it sent another shiver coursing through her. Still holding her protectively, he shuffled to the bed and tipped them both onto the sagging mattress. They collapsed into a sweaty heap, the world slowly retaking shape around them. Clarke's arms came free from around his neck and fell limply onto the bed. Dimly, up above, she could hear the muffled sound of the rain against the metal hatch. Bellamy's weight was a comforting blanket on top of her, his warm, masculine scent a welcome change from the clinical tang of chemicals always nearby.

"That was..." she whispered, trailing off as she realized there were no adjectives for what he'd just done to her. He exhaled a laugh into her shoulder.

"Yeah."

"What about you--?"

"Like I said." He brushed a kiss against her neck, his hair tickling her cheek. "Tomorrow."

The word crowded against the edges of her mind like a stormfront. Right now the bunker was warm and softly-lit and she wanted to imagine that there was nothing beyond its walls, and no tomorrow at all.

Clarke stared up at the ceiling and ran her fingers lazily up Bellamy's back, her nails grazing the ridges of his spine. 

He lifted his shaggy head from her shoulder, shifting his weight onto his forearms. His mouth curled in a lazy smile.  "So. You speak Grounder now?"

She was caught off guard. "What?"

Raising an eyebrow, he reached out absentmindedly to smooth her hair away from her face. "Yeah. You were speaking it in the tree. And again, just now."

The suggestive smile he flashed her made her flush hotly, all the way to her toes. It seemed to be his intended effect--with sultry precision, he lowered his beautiful mouth to her chest and planted a soft kiss between her breasts. 

She placed her hands on his head and teased his curls through her fingers. "I've been listening in on them nearly every day," she admitted. "I sort of forgot how to use English after awhile."

It had, in fact, been frighteningly easy to fall into their speech patterns, their tactics, their thoughts. When Bellamy had appeared in front of her hiding place, the struggle to identify him as friendly and not a target had terrified her. A language lesson from her Old French class had brought her to her senses, the memory of root words: 

_Bel_ , beautiful;  _Ami_ , friend. Indeed.

When Bellamy spoke again, he didn't look up, and his voice was careful. "Does that mean you understood me?" He traced a finger along the underwire of her bra.

Oh, right. Just outside of the tree. Much as she'd pretended she'd misheard.

"No," she said, rolling out from under him and onto her side, facing the wall. "I don't even remember what it was. I only know what I've picked up from the warriors."

"Right." His tone was neutral--perhaps she only imagined the chill. He got up with a grunt, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. She looked over her shoulder and watched him stand and stretch. She loved the way his muscled back sloped down into his narrow hips. Some people should always be shirtless.

He padded over to the basin and blew out the candles, each one briefly illuminating the spray of freckles on his dark, angular face before extinguishing. The room fell to darkness and he returned, the mattress shifting and squeaking under the weight of him. He pulled the wad of blanket up from the foot of the bed and smoothed it over her shoulder. The unconsciously tender gesture was so foreign to her that a lump rose in her throat. The possibility of letting go, of unshouldering her mantle had never before seemed so possible. Bellamy slid his arm around her naked waist, drawing her up against the firm wall of his body.

Silence fell. Clarke had never felt so safe, so warm. She'd forgotten what it was like to sleep wrapped up in another person. She shifted deeper into Bellamy's arms, which tightened automatically around her waist. His breathing was soft and steady in her ear. She traced a finger up and down his muscled forearm, finding the bulge of a vein and following it up his solid bicep and back. 

For a long time there was nothing in the darkness but the minuscule tick of her father's watch, still weighing down her wrist. At the sound of Bellamy's voice, she realized she wasn't the only one listening to it.

"Clarke," he whispered, so softly it almost wasn't there. "Don't go."

Her breath froze in her throat. She fought herself. She lost. 

"I won't," she murmured decisively, and settled herself back into the cradle of his arms, breathing in a deep, contented sigh.

Outside, the sound of rain diminished and disappeared. Bellamy's breathing evened and slowed against her ear. Gradually, his anchoring embrace loosened and fell away from her hips. The blanket dropped from her bare shoulder. She waited an hour, then another. Then she rose, softly, and dressed in the dark. Shouldering her pack, she groped for the ladder and made her way up. At the hatch she looked back, hoping for a last glimpse, but everything below her was darkness.

" _Ai hod yu in_ ," she whispered.

Setting her chin, she raised the hatch and climbed out into the night, where the last remnants of the storm still dripped from heavy branches. Lincoln stood at the treeline at the edge of the clearing, perfectly still, his hawk-like gaze trained on her. She set the hatch gently back in place and moved toward him quickly.

"You're late," he said with grave disapproval.

"We have plenty of time," she retorted, settling her pack on her shoulders. "Is Octavia okay?"

The rain had stopped and a slice of fluorescent moon now peeked through the clouds. It illuminated Lincoln's fierce eyes. "Fine. We eluded the  _branwoda_  quickly. I left her at my camp three hours ago."

She ignored the accusation in his tone. "Good. Then let's go." She turned to the trees, but he didn't follow. 

"This is a bad idea," he frowned.

Clarke was getting tired of having this conversation. "Noted--for the millionth time. Any better ideas yet?" He fell to sullen silence. "Okay then."

And without waiting for further acknowledgment, she headed at a quick, confident pace along the northwest route. He followed a step behind, and they ducked beneath tree branches silvered by moonlight, leaving the silent bunker behind.


	3. Regress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hahaha, remember when I thought this was going to be three chapters?
> 
> Not much for shippers in this chapter, unless you ship Clincoln (Linarke?), which I'm 90% sure no one ever has.
> 
> Get ready for some tough choices, y'all.

Traversing the forest was different with Lincoln than it was with Bellamy. Bellamy ran hot and fierce, and Clarke had been able to sense every tortured conflict just from his eyes and his step. He talked more than he listened.

Lincoln was the opposite. He projected nothing but cold reproach and moved at an unflagging pace, his quick eyes present and alert to the dangers of the trees. They walked for what may have been hours, silent and watchful in the dark, and it was like traveling with a ghost. It almost made her wish she had brought Bellamy instead.

_No. I killed Finn to barter peace and I'll kill Lexa to stop a war, but I won't let Bellamy die_ , she resolved. There was only so much of her left that hadn't been damaged or corrupted by the choices she had to make. 

_Don't go_ , he'd said. And she had. It made her sick; it made her want to turn around and run back to the bunker. Sneak back in and slide under the blanket. Make love with him in the morning, all morning.

With an effort, Clarke returned her attention to clearing the brush in front of her. She held the branches aside for Lincoln and he shouldered past her through the wet leaves without looking at her.

"You must really not want to do this," she commented wryly.

"There's no other way," he said flatly. It was too dark to see his expression. "You convinced me."

"So, you just happened to find Bellamy and Octavia and bring them into a gunfight," she said conversationally, feeling an acid sweetness creep into her voice. Lincoln ducked below a spray of fern and said nothing. "And it was a total coincidence that you positioned Bellamy right where you knew I was scouting."

"You're both leaders," he shrugged, not denying it. "I thought he'd have ideas to share. Maybe a better plan than this."

She remembered the hot sweep of Bellamy's tongue along her lip and her face grew warm. "Yeah, well. Something like that."

Lincoln looked at her for the first time since they had started walking, his eyes studying her shrewdly. She set her mouth and shook herself mentally. "So," she said, to say something, "is everything else in place?"

Lincoln rolled his broad shoulders in an approximation of a shrug. "I managed to infiltrate the camp undetected."

Clarke hated that she had to prompt him for every piece of information, but his stoic fortitude eased her anxiety somewhat. "And the tracking device I gave you?"

"Attached to the ceremonial cloak. The vessel will wear it for the ritual."

"Any idea who that'll be?"

"No. But it won't matter."

His tone was chilling; then again, that was half the reason she'd brought him. "And what if there are guards?" she pressed. "You said the vessel would be protected."

"They'll rely on secrecy more than numbers. The fewer guards, the better."

Clarke's world was beginning to compress at the edges. The scene of simplistic serenity with Bellamy--the bunker softened with orange candlelight, the wash of shadows on his back--was suddenly very far away. She was surrounded by darkness now, and the heavy drip of raindrops over waxy leaves.  _This is all I can think about,_  she reminded herself. Her arms were shivery with goosebumps.

The trees thinned as they moved along, then fell away, and as they approached the lip of a ridge, she could suddenly see their destination ahead--the foot of a mountain, a looming monolith a deeper shade of black than the starry sky. Its silhouette was like an absence in the universe.

"There," Lincoln whispered, as though the sheer black rock could hear him. He hunkered down into a squat, gazing alertly over the ridge. "The entrance." 

She could hear the waterfall better than she could see it, about three hundred yards in front of them, gushing down the base of the mountain to a deep pool below. Beyond it was their way in.

"Let's divide up the gear now," Clarke suggested, recognizing in herself the childish impulse to put off the inevitable. She shrugged off her pack and began sifting through it. The moonlight was better without the cover of treetops, and she quickly found the two palm-sized devices.

"Okay," she said, handing Lincoln one. "We each have one of these." She flipped a switch at the top and a screen blipped on, revealing the slow-blinking dot of the activated tracking device. It was still miles away from their location.

Lincoln studied his own screen with relative distaste. " _Dison laik yu strat_ _?_  I don't need this  _skrish_ to track," he spat, with the twisted mouth of a man deeply insulted.

"We're going to have to split up at some point," Clarke reminded him patiently. "This--" she waved the device, "--is a silent form of communication. When you've killed the vessel and raised the alarm, then crush the tracker. I'll see it go out on my screen and I'll kill Lexa. That's the only way we can be sure that everyone will think her cycle is broken."

It was a careless thing to say, and Lincoln's face grew crowded with a deep, dark anger. She'd forgotten that he was still of the Trikru people, and that he too believed that Lexa's soul would become locked out of the reincarnation cycle forever.

"I'm sorry," she said quickly. She put her hand out to touch his shoulder, but he jerked away. "I wish we didn't have to do this either." The words sounded singularly unimpressive, even to her.

His nostrils flared but he didn't respond. Instead, he looked down at the miniature screen. "They're moving."

Silence fell. They watched the blinking red dot creep across the map toward their position. Twenty minutes passed and Clarke's legs began to ache, but Lincoln was as still and steady as the monolith in front of them. Her eyelids grew heavy and the gray, moonlit landscape swam before her eyes. Finally, with a weary groan, she laid down with her back against the ridge. Lincoln tossed her a disapproving look but said nothing.

"They'll be here before dawn," Clarke murmured, staring up at the bright-burning stars. The night sky always seemed smaller and farther away on Earth than it had on the Ark. It was a lonely feeling she had never quite gotten used to. "I never realized that I might not see another sunrise." The wind picked up and she shivered, rubbing her arms protectively. She'd worn a jacket, but it was thin, and the early spring air was cold. "I wish I had less time to sit here and think about my own death."

"If you die tonight, you will unite the tribes against you and doom all of your people," Lincoln said in his grave monotone. Clarke glanced up at him, but his gaze was still trained on the waterfall entrance. Moonlight reflected off the side of his shaved head. "You can't let it be a possibility to you, or you will be caught."

"Even if that happens," she said softly, settling her shoulders back against the damp wall of the ridge. "Bellamy will head back to the camp when he realizes I left. He'll get them ready for an attack."

Lincoln did look at her now, with an expression he always seemed to give her people when they said just about anything. It was a look of mild surprise that they'd survived as long as they had. "You put too much faith in him."

"Well, we both have a lot of misplaced trust in the Blakes," she retorted, a little aggressively. She hated to think that Bellamy was becoming her weak spot. 

To her surprise, Lincoln breathed the approximation of a laugh. " _Em ste r_ _idiyo._ I do trust Octavia," he nodded. His hawkish gaze scanned the horizon. "But I do not trust her to listen to me, or do anything I say." Seemingly without his knowledge or consent, his mouth turned up slightly at the corner. "And that has saved my life."

Clarke mulled that over as she watched the stars fade overhead and the sky lighten to a dull gray. Her muscles were so frozen and stiff by the time Lincoln said, "They're here," that she barely felt any fear.

Rolling over onto her belly, she crawled up to the lip of the ridge and peered over. In the pre-dawn gray, she could see the shapes of horses trotting up from the trees below. They stopped a little ways from the monolith and nine indistinct figures dismounted. Clarke watched as they made their way slowly up the rocky incline, skirting the pool at the base of the mountain. They carried flaming torches that whipped in the breeze. One of the figures was cloaked.

"Why nine of them?" she whispered. "Three guards for Lexa and three for the vessel, so who's the extra?"

He shrugged, looking uncomfortable for the first time. "Perhaps one of our priests to perform the ritual?" She couldn't help but notice that it came out as a question.

"You don't know?" she gaped, baffled. 

Lincoln was a big man, and when he turned his whole body toward her, she flinched backwards, sliding down the ridge a little in a stuttering scrape of muddy rocks and loose scree.

"Who do you people think I  _am_?" he demanded in a harsh whisper. "This is a sacred ritual. I am not worthy to be in the mountain, and neither are you. I have dirtied myself just by touching the vessel's cloak, just by  _leading_  you here."

Clarke's palms were stinging from stopping her fall, but she stayed still. The fact that she was blatantly violating a sacred space hadn't occurred to her, and it brought on a new wave of foreboding.

"You're not coming in with me, are you?" she asked, meeting his gaze steadily. His sharp brown eyes studied her face, then looked away. She couldn't tell if his shame was with her or himself.

"No," he ground out. "You go alone. Stay close to Lexa. I'll find the vessel after the ritual is complete."

_I can't go in there alone,_  she thought wildly. She remembered Bellamy's set, determined face, and pushed the panic down.  _If you go, I go,_  he'd said. She wished she'd listened. It was time now to make sure she didn't regret leaving him behind.

"Lincoln--" she began.

"No arguing."

"I'm not," she replied shortly, wiping her hands off on her pants. She glanced up at the mountain; Lexa's group had already disappeared behind the hard spray of the waterfall. "I'm not going to force you to break your customs. But if we're splitting up right now, we need a way to communicate with each other." She snagged her backpack and pulled it to her. She began digging through it. Lincoln shook his head sharply, once.

"No. Your radio devices will be too loud in the cave. You'll be heard. Then dead."

"What a poet you are," Clarke said wryly. She found what she was looking for in a small zipped pocket. With a smile just shy of smug satisfaction, she held the two capsules aloft in her open palm.

"More trackers," Lincoln murmured, looking nonplussed at the little metal devices.

"One for each of us," Clarke prompted. "We'll already be watching our screens. If you're in trouble or need to break off the mission, turn your tracker on like this." She twisted the metal cap, revealing a red light in the center. On her scanner, a second dot flared to life and began to blink a slow, steady pulse. "I'll do the same with mine if I need your help." With another twist, the red light was extinguished and the capsule went dark. Lincoln took it from her and nodded brusquely, which was the only sign of approval she was likely to get. 

Shouldering her pack and pocketing the other capsule, she stood, a little unsteadily. The edge of the ridge was soft and wet under her boot heel and the slope down to the pool was steep. She could feel how visible she was in the soupy mixture of moonlight and lightening horizon.

"I should have killed Lexa at Mount Weather when I had the chance," she said grimly.

Lincoln rolled his shoulders noncommittally. "Maybe. But here she is nearly unprotected, and not watched at all. You actually have a chance to kill her and live, soft as you are." His tone was as flat as it ever was, but his lips softened just enough at the corners to let her know she wasn't really being insulted. 

"What are you going to do while I'm in there?" she asked.

He squinted into the distance at the wide swath of trees that ringed the monolith. "Lexa may come out the way she went in, but the vessel definitely won't. I'll circle the mountain and look for other exits. I will be ready for them."

She nodded. "Well then. I guess this is it." She held out her hand for him to shake, but he was already tucking his scanner into his cloak, preparing to move out.

" _D_ _en dula yu dula_ _,_ " he said, brushing past her.

_Then do your job_. There was no sentiment in this man at all. Not knowing how to say "good luck," Clarke settled for murmuring, " _N_ _ou get yu daun_ ," as convincingly as she could and taking a careful step forward. 

She heard him grunt behind her as she descended. "Who's worried?"

**************

The path down the ridge and around the pool took longer than she'd expected. The slope was muddy, and the rocks around the pool were wet. She picked her way up to the waterfall carefully, shivering as the spray dampened her wavy hair and glued her jacket to her skin.

By the time she'd scrambled up to the slick ledge behind the falls, the world was a bit lighter, and the only sound was the thundering of the water at her back. In the weak light, she could see the thin fissure in the black rock where the others had slipped through. There was no guard. Lincoln was right about secrecy.

Turning sideways, she squeezed through the opening and took a scraping, shuffling step into the tunnel. Darkness stuffed itself into all of her senses. She was a snuffed-out candle. 

Her heart beginning to pound, Clarke stared into the impenetrable darkness of the tunnel, but no shapes resolved there. The air was cool and dank. She forced herself to take a step, and then another. The walls were so close that they brushed her shoulders, and the sharp rock was slimy against her skin. Warily, she glanced down at the tracking scanner dangling from her hand. The single red dot blinked reassuringly on the screen. The vessel was half a klick in front of her, deeper into the mountain. 

She inched along the corridor, one hand trailing the wet, black rock. She couldn't work up the nerve to turn her light on, and the screen on her scanner barely illuminated her hand, so she had to walk with the knowledge that at any moment she might run into a sharp outcropping, or a pit in the floor, or the solid bulk of a Grounder. Several times, the wall against her palm fell away as the tunnel branched out in a fork, leaving her stumbling and breathless. She ignored each one in turn. The blinking dot was ever in front of her, so she followed the main line, step by careful step.

It was beginning to dawn on her how many tertiary passages there were in this cave, how many entrances and exits there might be. If Lexa was performing this ritual in secret, then she was worried about more than just the Ark. She was worried about a coup from her own people. Clarke might not be the only person hiding in the dark, waiting for the right moment to launch an ambush. The thought made her shiver. A cool breeze breathed through the tunnel and somewhere ahead was the sound of water dripping. She moved toward it.

Soon she began to hear the faint sound of voices, and not long after that she could actually make out a stretch of the tunnel far ahead of her, the orange glow of torch flames flickering along the wall. The sound of trickling water grew stronger. Clarke's heart was beating in her throat and it was all she could do not to turn and run. It was like being in the tunnels with the Reapers all over again.

_There are no more Reapers,_  she reminded herself sternly, forcing herself to move forward toward the dancing light.  _Lexa got that fix from you, and so much more._

Ahead of her, the walls sloped away from each other and the tunnel opened up into a huge cavern. Torches were set in the entryway but beyond that the cave was lit with a wavery, electric blue light. The space was like a ballroom from an old history book. There were thick, crumbling pillars that had formed when dripping stalactites and stalagmites met in the middle, and an arched ceiling yawned up so high that it disappeared into the shadows. The dark mouths of different passageways all seemed to converge here; at the end of the ritual, it would be easy to spirit the vessel away in one direction and Lexa in another.

The group of Grounders was twenty yards ahead, clustered around a deep, sparkling turquoise pool that had formed in the stone floor. It was phosphorescent, lit up like a shining jewel from within. It shimmered in its own light, pure and cold and beautiful. Water  _plinked_  softly into it from the ceiling overhead.

Clarke stood in the concealing shadows at the entryway, trying to slow her galloping breath. She eased her scanner back into the flap of her pack and flattened herself against the wall, listening carefully. The murmuring voices were too muddled for her to understand, their echoes bouncing off the cavernous walls. She had to get closer, but she couldn't step out into the open. The light from the pool illuminated most of the cavern, and any movement might give her away.

The sound of heavy footsteps gave her half a second's warning that someone was coming. She threw herself backwards as the dark, looming shape of a male Grounder filled the entrance, a heavy ax dangling from one hand, a torch held aloft in the other. She pressed herself into the shadows along the wall, holding her hand over her own mouth to quiet her heaving breath. The man stood still in the mouth of the passage, his head cocked as though to listen. He hadn't seen her yet. She inched backwards, trying to soften the scrape of her boots on the stony ground. The rock wall sliced into her arms, but she didn't flinch away. 

The man stopped listening and moved toward her. The flames from his torch illuminated the length of tunnel between them, the light creeping toward her steadily. He was wearing the mask of the commander's personal guard, a terrifying skeletal face made out of gray bone. Along his neck was a series of half-healed track marks, black and puckered in the flickering light.

_Reaper._

Even knowing that he was likely rehabilitated and therefore just another Grounder, the sight made Clarke's blood run cold. Her heartbeat was so loud it was the only sound in the world. He came at her slowly and intractably, the light from his torch pushing forward along the walls, faster than she could back away. He was listening,  _sniffing_ the air, his head lowered as though latching onto her presence. The orange light licked at the tip of her boots--

\--and the rock behind her fell away into a side passage. She slipped into it with a silent gasp and hugged the wall as he stalked past. The flame lit up the tunnel ahead of him, then faded out of sight. Darkness returned like an exhaled breath.

So that was what the extra person was for--patrolling the entrance. She was lucky she had seen so many other tunnels leading into the cavern.  With quick, light steps, she continued along the side passage, listening for voices through the crumbling walls. It didn't take long to find a different outlet near the pool, one that let her out behind the remains of a collapsed stalactite. The glow was wavery and weak here, and she crouched in darkness, peeking through the cracks of a boulder. 

She could see Lexa through the slit, her beautiful visage thrown into sharp lines from the eerie blue light coming off the water. Her face was naked and scrubbed clean of its war paint, and she looked strikingly young. The hooded vessel stood beside her, tall and reedy and silent. They were flanked by two guards on each side in the same sinister masks as the patrol. They stood facing outwards, their hands on the hilts of their swords. Clarke couldn't help but note that they all carried pistols as well, in ill-fitting holsters slung around their waists. Someone out of Clarke's range of sight was speaking Trigedasleng in a throaty female tone.

"This pool that gave our ancestors their first reprieve from the brown water," she recited in a voice like cracked leather. Lincoln had been right about a priest, then. "That represents the purity of our crossing, the passage from the struggle of one body to another. As it gave our ancestors hope of a new life, may it also guide our spirits now."

The priestess, a bent and ancient woman, moved into Clarke's frame of vision, her cupped hands filled with the sparkling water from the pool. Lexa knelt and the priestess released the liquid into her chestnut hair. It slid down her face and dripped from her chin to the stony ground. When she raised her head, Clarke felt a chill go through her. She'd forgotten how beautiful and cold Lexa was, the danger that was waiting in her eyes.

The prickle of gooseflesh made Clarke evaluate the scene again. One guard patrolling, four flanking. The commander, the vessel, the priestess. Five guards, three participants...where was the ninth person she had seen enter the cave? Out of reflex, Clarke glanced over her shoulder, nearly expecting to see a masked figure standing at her back, breathing down her neck. But there was only the dark tunnel, cool and empty. Her skin crawling, she turned her attention back to the ritual.

The old woman had turned to the vessel, who was half a head taller than Lexa. Dark hands came up and drew back the hood, and Clarke bit down on a gasp. It was just a boy, no older than fifteen. The broad span of his shoulders held a sharp contrast to the wide cast of his eyes, where some fear still lived. He lowered himself awkwardly to his knees, shutting his eyes as the water trickled over his face. This couldn't be the second. It couldn't, he was too young.

_No more dead children,_ she thought desperately.  _Please._

But it was a useless plea. She had condemned the boy to die the second she put the tracker in Lincoln's hand. 

His face was round, his skin dark brown, his hair pulled into a high, sprouting ponytail at the top of his head. His mouth had a quirking kindness to it. He looked like Wells. 

Closing her eyes and resting her forehead against the cool, wet rock in front of her, Clarke tried to gather herself back up. She reminded herself that he was unquestionably a soldier, that he had no doubt cut his teeth on the bones of her people. He wouldn't be standing here unless he was ruthless.

_This is war,_  she told herself firmly.  _This is sacrifice_.  _This boy or all of your people. One life for many._

She opened her eyes and made herself watch. She owed him that much, the gift of observing his young life in its last hours. Lexa rose smoothly to her feet, and the boy followed, glancing at her for confirmation.

"May you share the blood of this sacrifice and may it bind you, through your hands, through your tongues, through the beating of your hearts." The priestess touched them both lightly on their shoulders, and the three of them moved out of Clarke's line of vision into the wider cavern beyond.

Blood? Sacrifice? Lincoln hadn't mentioned any of this. Most likely he hadn't known himself. The quickening feeling of danger spiking her pulse, Clarke lifted her head over the top of the boulder and peered out into the cavern. She was filled with the trembling awareness of how visible she was, but she couldn't help herself. She couldn't not look.

Fortunately, their backs were to her. Lexa and her entourage were in a semicircle around a stone pillar set in the middle of the cavern. And there, finally, was the ninth figure--trussed up and tied to the plinth, hands bound overhead--a prisoner. A large stone basin sat at the foot of the scene, flaked and rusty-looking. It was a bowl, Clarke realized with slow horror. A bowl for catching blood.

"May you taste the blood of your enemy and be endowed with the strength to fight them all," the priestess intoned in her crackling voice. "May you be bound in your unity against them so that, though one may fall, the other shall rise up and take the same exalted place."

The captive figure raised a lolling head, dazed eyes making a brave attempt at focusing. A thrill of terror swept through Clarke at the sight, a dawning realization. That familiar dark hair, that angry jawline, the Blake family eyes...

"Octavia," she whispered. 

************************

Clarke stood completely upright in stunned horror, unable to move. If someone turned around now, she was dead.

_The ritual is an enemy sacrifice,_  she thought numbly.  _The ritual is Octavia._

Octavia lifted her chin from her collarbone, her glazed brown eyes dragging the room. They locked onto Clarke and widened perceptibly with recognition. She made an indistinct noise against the gag tied around her mouth, and Clarke dropped back down into a crouch, her pulse pounding.

A white noise was screaming through her head. She couldn't think around it. She put her palms to her temples and took two long breaths, but her mind wouldn't settle. The only words she could think were  _What am I going to do?_  over and over, the panicked struggle of her mind beating hard against the fear trapping it.

Maybe they weren't going to kill Octavia. Maybe the ritual was just using some of her blood. The thought brought her a momentary calm. Then she remembered the depth of the stone basin, the rusty residue splashed up its sides, and she shuddered. 

Clarke squeezed her eyes shut and tried to focus. What were her options? Lowering herself to the floor, she eased off her pack and sifted through it as quietly as she could, all too aware that there was the sharp sound of metal being sharpened on stone outside of her cover. She tried to tune it out but it scraped at her ears, making her cringe, making her trembling fingers fumble.

The pack didn't have much. Empty syringes, three Grounder knives, and her scanner. The red dot continued to blink on top of her position. She hadn't brought a pistol--she'd stopped using those months ago. All the gas canisters were back at the bunker. She'd brought a dart gun in case she needed to subdue someone guarding Lexa, but how many of these people could she take down--one? Two? Then what? They would catch her and kill her.

_If you die tonight, you will unite the tribes against you and doom all of your people,_  Lincoln had said. He couldn't have known about this, though. He wouldn't ever let this happen. 

Lincoln. She could signal him, let him know that the plan was going south. Clarke dug into her pocket for her tracker, then stopped, her fingers rolling the little capsule back and forth in bleak indecision. She had no idea where Lincoln was. He could be halfway around the mountain and this was happening  _now_. He'd never get there in time. If she did signal him, it would be an end to their plan and Octavia would still die, one way or the other. And then all of her people would too.

Octavia was screaming in earnest against her gag now. Clarke couldn't help but note that there was no pain in the muffled cries yet. Just fury. She forced herself not to look over the cover of the boulder.

_You can't let Octavia die,_  she thought, shaking her head. The edges of her world were turning a dull red as she frantically considered ideas and tossed them aside. The priestess had begun singing in a high, keening voice. Clarke scrabbled at the empty pockets along the side of her pack, her breath coming in a rush.  _You can't_.  _You can't._   _This isn't who you are._

_Who we are and who we need to be to survive are very different things._  It was Bellamy's voice in her head now, low and determined. Clarke's heart wrenched at the twisted irony--it was the philosophy he applied to everyone except his sister.

_This will kill him,_ she thought.  _You have to think of something else._

But there  _was_  nothing else. The ritual had to happen or the Grounders would ride to war. Clarke had to stay hidden. What, exactly, were her choices?

The priestess stopped singing abruptly. The only sound was Clarke's own breath, harsh in her ears, and the sound of trickling water in the echoing cavern.

_Too late. You're out of time._

All of her muscles shaking, Clarke raised herself up into a crouch and peered over the boulder wall. Lexa and the vessel were kneeling near the basin, their heads bent in reverence. Octavia was still roped to the pillar at the waist, but her arms had been released from above her head, forcing her to lean forward, her neck hovering over the stone bowl. Her dark hair hung down over her face and Clarke could no longer see her eyes. It was a small blessing.

The priestess stepped into place by Octavia's side, a long, wicked knife clutched in one hand. It gleamed in the blue light, the metal edge shining, razor-sharp. The sight made Clarke's stomach churn.

_Put a stop to this,_  she ordered herself, but her body wouldn't comply. There was no point. The ritual  _had_  to be completed. There was no other way.

The priestess reached up and swept Octavia's hair aside, throwing it in a heavy coil over one shoulder and exposing her delicate neck. Clarke's heart sounded its protest, but she quieted it with an effort.

_One life for many._  

The knife came up, the point of it pricking Octavia's throat. The sharp tip slid in  without resistance and a bright bead of blood welled up there, shocking against her skin. Octavia raised her chin and locked gazes with Clarke, her dark eyes full of furious betrayal. Clarke didn't look away.

With a sharp flick, one of the Grounder guard's head snapped back, just as a cracking  _bang_ shook the cavern. Dust exploded from the ceiling, and Clarke's ears rang. She looked wildly from person to person, but everyone was scrambling, their limbs shifting in and out of the wavering light as they fled for cover. All except for the guard closest to Clarke, who was laid out on her back, her mask cracked in two, an oozing hole in the middle of her forehead.

_We're under attack,_  was Clarke's only muddled thought.

Another shot rang out, but this one missed its target and chipped one of the stone pillars instead. Clarke followed the trajectory this time--it was coming from one of the dark tertiary tunnels across from her. She stayed down--now that Grounders were using guns, there was no telling who was trying to kill whom.

Clarke could see Lexa and the vessel taking cover behind Octavia's pillar. The boy shrugged off his cumbersome cloak,  already reaching for a gun at his belt. His young face was set in a determined expression, but Lexa's hand closed over his wrist, and Clarke heard her say, "No! Not here!"

He obeyed her immediately, releasing his grip on the pistol. More cautious now, he craned his neck to see around the pillar, and a well-aimed bullet caught him in the throat. The vessel flailed and fell to the ground, drowning in his own blood. Clarke watched in horror, unable to move or even process the carnage from her vantage point. He landed on his back, his scrabbling eyes searching the ceiling as he choked. This boy she was going to kill, and the sight of him dying made her want to retch. His gaze grew fixed and his thrashing ceased. He stared ever upwards, unseeing.

He looked like Wells.

Three more shots in quick succession, and the priestess went down, screeching in pain and clutching her leg. The remaining three guards had fanned out and were positioned on both sides of the darkened tunnel entrance, their hands full of axes, spears, knives. A trembling silence fell. Clarke was frozen in place, her eyes barely peeking over the lip of the boulder.

For a long moment no one moved. The whole cavern seemed to breathe, and the only sound was the priestess moaning, low and guttural. Clarke thought the guards would attack, but they remained completely still. Then, loud in the silence, there was a wild yell in the passage and the scraping, panicked sound of a scuffle echoing from the tunnel. The patrolling guard, Clarke realized. He'd snuck up a side passage and made his move. 

_Maybe now,_  she thought.  _Maybe this is my second chance, while they're all fighting each other_. She could take the dead guard's weapon, run up to the pillar, and cut Octavia free. If everyone was distracted, they might have a shot at running, depending on how long the mystery attacker survived in that tunnel...

Her hurried plan was cut off abruptly as a high-pitched, ear-piercing tone flared through the echoing cavern. Its screeching call rent the air--unwavering and horribly, frighteningly familiar. The priestess, Lexa, and the vessel all covered their ears, but Clarke was astonished to see the way the guards reacted. They fell, writhing, to the ground, their teeth gnashing in pain. One of them held his hands to his head and howled in agony, a discordant harmony to the unrelenting pitch.

Clarke sucked in a breath. The frequency batons from Mount Weather still worked on former Reapers.

From the dark mouth of the side tunnel, a shadowy figure emerged. In his hand was a baton capped with the tell-tale electric blue light. The piercing pitch was emanating from it. In his other hand he was dragging the seizing Grounder patrol by the collar. He stepped out into the cavern, over the twitching, spasming guards, and stopped.

Holding the shrieking baton aloft, the man dropped the Grounder onto the floor, pulled the pistol from the waistband of his pants, and shot him in the head. The Grounder jerked once and then lay still. 

"All right, you bastards," Bellamy Blake shouted hoarsely to the room. "Who's next?"


	4. Remonstrance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Is angst better than porn?
> 
> No, no it is not. But that's apparently what I'm giving you this round. Because Bellamy also has the most soulful eyes in the world and it would be wrong not to explore that.
> 
> Picture those beautiful, conflicted brown peepers during this whole chapter, please. Think, like, the eyes of an orphaned puppy who is also a Disney Princess.

No one moved. The shrieking tone continued to loop in the air, its insistent whine doubling back on itself and saturating the cavern. 

"I'm here for my sister," Bellamy growled, the muscle in his jaw working like mad. The blue light from the pool muddled his features, but Clarke could see his dark eyes moving, obscured though they were by his sweat-dampened hair. They swept the room and lingered briefly on her before moving swiftly away. Clarke felt a jolt go through her at the pure venom in his gaze.

_He saw me._ Ice water in her veins.  _He knew where I was this whole time._

One of the Grounders, perhaps better rehabilitated than his fellow guards, tried to raise himself onto trembling arms, fighting the punishing effects of the baton. His expression twisted in unmasked fury, Bellamy turned and kicked him hard in the ribs, and the man collapsed. 

"Did you think we wouldn't use their technology?" he demanded, grinding his boot heel into the man's hand until he cried out. "Did you think I would come here without it?"

_He's out of bullets,_ Clarke realized. He might have pillaged her bunker for Mount Weather technology, but the only bullets he had were the ones he'd brought in his pistol. And he'd emptied the clip. So all of this was a bluff, a way to buy her time. She had to move, now.

It was clear that Lexa had come to the same conclusion at the same time. Before Clarke could move, she saw Lexa rise smoothly, her face a mask of determined calm. Pulling her sword in one motion as she turned, she stepped swiftly around the pillar and charged straight at Bellamy.

Bellamy raised the pistol, but Lexa didn't dodge or slow down, and his widening eyes betrayed the ruse. He threw the gun at her instead, but she ducked beneath it and swung her sword. Bellamy got the baton up in time to parry the blow, but it shattered, and the high-pitched tone went out. The sudden silence laid over the flowing blue light made it feel like the whole room had been plunged underwater.

The guards had regained their feet and were surrounding the battling pair. Bellamy aimed a punch at Lexa's head, but she knocked his wrist aside with the hilt of her sword and kicked his leg out from beneath him. He went down hard onto one knee, his neck exposed to an overhand blow.

"Stop!"

Clarke found herself standing, found herself moving for the first time in what felt like hours. Her brain had gone dumb, and she stepped out from behind the boulder without thinking, her hands plunged deep into her pockets. The guards took the opportunity to grab Bellamy's arms from behind, wrestling him into submission. But Lexa turned, her clever, narrow face honing in on Clarke as though she had always known she was there. She lowered the sword.

"Clarke," she called in surprise, in a voice that was very nearly friendly, very close to joy. Then her gaze cut down to Bellamy, who was wrenching his body against his captors in an attempt to free himself, and her mouth grew thin.

"Bring her to me," she ordered sharply. One of the guards hastened to do so, and Clarke fought the impulse to turn and run. Instead she let the man grab her roughly by the bicep and tear the backpack from her shoulder. She didn't grant him even a glance, but kept her gaze on Lexa. The commander's hair was in loose waves down her shoulders, but although she wore no armor or war paint, she was every inch a chief, her eyes full of devastating calm.

The guard half-walked, half-dragged Clarke toward the pillar, dumping the pack at Lexa's feet. After so much action, everything seemed strangely still now, a tableau washed in blue light. Octavia was still bound to the pillar, her eyes alert and frantic. Blood seeped in a line down her bobbing throat. The priestess on the floor had gone still and was watching them all with large eyes. And Bellamy...Bellamy had been dragged to his feet, but his gaze was fixed firmly on the ground. His large, dark eyes were wet, and his mouth was a twisted wire.

Clarke tried to block him from her mind. She had more important things to deal with. The very possibility of the ritual succeeding had been smashed to pieces in an instant, and now they were all dead unless she did something very, very clever in the next few minutes. Lexa's hazel eyes were piercing, and her gaze made Clarke feel naked. The guard stopped her in front of Lexa, and Lexa studied her.

"Explain yourself, Clarke," she demanded crisply, sheathing her sword. "For months I have honored our agreement and left your people alone. How have you found this sacred space, and why did you come here to desecrate it?"

"Honored, my ass, you--" Bellamy started hotly, straining forward against the men holding him.

"Bellamy." Clarke said it quietly, striving for the dangerous calm that Lexa exuded. It worked. Bellamy fell into a disgusted silence, his face turned away.

Clarke kept her breathing even and hoped like hell that her expression didn't give her away. Because Lexa had revealed a lot in a few short sentences, and the most important one stuck out loud and clear:  _She doesn't want to go to war with us_.

"You kidnapped one of my people from the woods, so Bellamy and I came here to get her back," Clarke lied briskly. On the pillar, Octavia made a noise through her gag that sounded suspiciously like  _Ha!_  "We have ways of tracking that we learned from Mount Weather," Clarke continued calmly. "She was easy to find. And so were you." She let that sink in for a second. "But now that I'm here, I have something to offer you: information, and a warning. The warning is this." She made her heart as hard as her voice, meeting Lexa's gaze without blinking. "Don't mess with us, Lexa. Camp Jaha is ready for you."

She could practically feel Bellamy's heartbeat speed up next to her. She didn't dare look at him. She couldn't look anywhere but Lexa, who had raised her chin haughtily.

"Tell me what you know," she ordered, a note of curiosity betraying her hard tone.

_Delay delay delay delay._

Clarke found it in herself to manage a tight, mysterious smile. "No. The information is an offer. This operation went badly, and I apologize for the death of your people. I'll give you the information if you let Bellamy and Octavia go."

No sign of consideration crossed Lexa's expression. "No," she said coldly. "Blood must have blood. This man--" She spat the word "--profaned the cave of the sacred pool. There is to be no killing in this space, and certainly none with weapons from the outsiders. He killed my guard. He  _murdered_  my second." For a moment it seemed like she was going to lose her temper, but she breathed out slowly and continued in an even tone. "He has desecrated our most venerated traditions. That cannot be tolerated."

Bellamy finally spoke, his voice wound tight. He looked up from under his dark curls, his strong arms flexing in the Grounders' grip. "If you're not supposed to be killing in here then what the hell were you going to do to Octavia?" he growled.

Lexa bestowed a tolerant look on him. "That wasn't going to be a kill, you mewling child. It was sacrifice." She met Clarke's eye for confirmation. "Some of us know the difference."

Clarke flushed hotly, her skin suddenly too tight. Lexa had always been able to see right through to the bottom of her. She viewed what scared Clarke most about herself as strength. 

"Well, Octavia didn't kill anyone," Bellamy persisted. "At least let her go." The last word cracked a little and he swallowed, still gazing steadily at Lexa. "C'mon," he goaded in a low tone, a humorless smile curling his lips. "You want to punish me, not her."

Lexa looked to the dead vessel lying among the rubble and her mouth grew cruel. "That's what I'm doing." She jerked her head at the guard. "Take them outside and shoot them both."

At the finality in her voice, the bottom of Clarke's stomach fell away. Her hand flew to her mouth as everyone moved with a sudden speed--one guard cut Octavia free with a careless swing of his ax, while another caught her and pushed her to her feet. The third was already in the process of dragging Bellamy away.

"Wait!" Clarke called desperately. "Please. Lexa." She moved in urgently, close enough to breathe in the earthy scent of Lexa's hair, and lowered her voice. "You don't have to do this. I can help you."

"Your information may buy you your life, Clarke, but not theirs," Lexa murmured intractably. Her eyes flitted over Clarke's face, taking in the devastation there, and her expression became equal parts pity and disgust. "I see you learned nothing from me."

It couldn't end like this. She needed more time, and it was all slipping away. Clarke reached out and grabbed Lexa's arm, causing one of the guards to step forward, but Lexa raised her other hand to stop him. No one moved. Lexa's gaze was an impatient question. 

"At least let me say goodbye," Clarke said, trying not to beg.

A look of brief understanding and a sharp nod of approval was all she needed to turn away. She ran her tongue along her teeth, feeling all of her schemes crumbling away like rotten wood. Lexa caught her wrist.

"Wait." 

Clarke turned back to her. With a knowing look, Lexa pushed Clarke's sleeves back and ran her small, nimble fingers up the sensitive skin on the inside of Clarke's wrists. She fingered the lining of her cuffs, her touch surprisingly warm and gentle. Her searching hands found nothing. "I never know with you," she said with a small smile.

Finally released, Clarke turned and looked at Bellamy. Lexa's jab about Finn hadn't helped this situation at all, or made what she had to do now any easier. The guard still held his hands behind his back, but Bellamy had managed to straighten up enough to glare down at her. The wavy lines of blue light from the pool made his eyes a watery, inky black, but it was more than just the glow. Wounded, furious tears stood at attention but didn't fall as he held her gaze.

_This is the end of us,_ she realized. _This is really it._

She took a hesitant step forward, then another, until she was toe-to-toe with him. He had the look of a man who can't put his hatred into words and therefore says nothing; his scorching glare made her want to step away. Instead, she reached up and brushed the heavy locks of hair off his forehead. He flinched from her touch.

She needed to kiss him goodbye. The hard set of his mouth informed her that that was never, ever going to happen. Enduring his glare with a roiling in her belly, she leaned in and settled her grip on the back of his neck.  He twisted under her hand like a horse fighting the reins, so she pulled his stubborn face closer to hers, imploring him with her gaze. 

"Bellamy, please." 

He stilled, his eyes locked on hers, his breath coming hard through his nose. Under her insistent touch his skin was cold and clammy, and she could feel his jaw working hard. A  tear broke off unnoticed and streaked down his dirty cheek.  She wanted to explain everything to him but she couldn't with Lexa standing there. Besides, he wouldn't understand.  His brow was knit, his mouth a tightened drawstring.

"I'll never forgive you for this," he muttered harshly. 

" _Ai hod yu in,_ " she replied, and it got exactly the response she needed. A mixture of outrage and heartbreak twisted his features. He opened his mouth and she pulled him to her.

She kissed him with as much fervor as she had, with all the passion she knew she'd never be able to offer again. He struggled against her hold but she was unyielding. When she pushed her tongue past his teeth and into his mouth he grew suddenly still, and his lips softened with something like compliance. She tried to memorize the taste of him, the shape of his mouth. For a moment, she thought he might have kissed her back. She pulled away, her heart aching.

"May we meet again," she whispered.

He said nothing as the guards tied his hands in front of him, his face a canvas of mixed, mottled emotions. And then he was dragged away, yanked by his wrists along a rope into a side tunnel behind Octavia. He glanced back fleetingly, his eyes searching hers, and then he was swallowed by darkness.

"Check the tunnels," Lexa said sharply to the remaining guard. "There may be more of them." The fact that she was being left alone with Clarke seemed to faze her not at all.

An eerie blue silence wormed its way into the room as the sound of scuffing boots and whooshing torches faded down the tunnel. Clarke became aware of the fact that they were outnumbered by the wounded and dead. She shivered. The vessel's lifeless body pulled her gaze against her will.

She expected an immediate interrogation, but Lexa said nothing, and the only sound was the steady drip of water into the pool. She was watching Clarke with glittering interest in her eyes. Clarke realized that Lexa wanted to wait, to let Clarke suffer at the thought of Bellamy and Octavia forced through the labyrinth of tunnels, through stumbling darkness to their deaths.

She couldn't let herself think about Bellamy. Every second that Lexa wasn't questioning her was a second to think and to plan. But it was hard not to dwell on the helpless tears forming in his eyes as his sister was condemned to death. The wounded fury in his voice. The reluctant acquiescence of his mouth against hers.

Wordlessly, Lexa moved across the cavern to the pillar where Octavia had been tied. The hard press of her lips was the only indication of any inner turmoil as she knelt next to the body of the young vessel, her sharp gaze studying his ruined throat and wide-open eyes. For a long time she stayed there in respectful silence, her knees unprotected against the hard ground. Eventually, as though responding to some invisible cue, she drew a knife.

" _Yu gonplei ste odon,_ " she murmured, and cut a lock from his topknot.

Through the twisting length of the tunnels, a muffled shot rang out, and Clarke jumped. She hadn't expected to hear it. A second shot followed the first, crisp and unforgiving on the cold air. Clarke felt her breath wither in her lungs. Tears jumped to her eyes.

_What have I done?_ she thought numbly. The thought was followed immediately by,  _What am I going to do now?_

"Okay," said Lexa quietly, rising to her feet and tucking the boy's hair into her belt. She circled Clarke carefully, her gaze predatory. "Start talking."

****************************

Bellamy was having a terrible day.

Heavy rope chafed his wrists, and every step he was pulled down the dark tunnel held a high probability of smacking him hard into the rough rock wall. This tunnel was unfamiliar--wider than the one they'd all used to come in, and subject to a number of bends and hairpin turns. The guard dragging him along seemed to have no problem with scraping him across the sharp edges, and Bellamy bit down on any sounds of pain that might grant his captor even a moment of satisfaction. 

Ahead of him, Octavia was still gagged but lighter on her feet. Every time the guard yanked at her rope, she stepped nimbly to make up the distance. All Bellamy could make out in the dim torchlight was the back of her head, but he could still see her plotting, mentally creating weapons out of her surroundings.

_She's still alive, and that's all that matters for now,_  Bellamy thought firmly. He might not make it out of this, but he would make sure she did. It was a responsibility he could only entrust to himself. 

When he'd woken up to the sound of the hatch closing that morning, he had spent several minutes wide awake in the dark bunker, trying to decide what to do. Following Clarke and Lincoln without announcing himself had felt disingenuous at the time, but now he was glad. Trust was an unaffordable luxury on the Ground. Clarke had shown him that.

\-- _t_ _he insistent push of her tongue along his lips and the hard clack against his teeth, the sensation drawing his mouth open automatically to let her slip inside--_

Bellamy ground his teeth against the memory. Whatever the hell Clarke was trying to do for them now, it was too little, too late. He couldn't get the image of her out of his mind--ghostly pale and too visible behind that damn rock, anguished but unmoving as she watched them put a knife to Octavia's throat. He had been waiting for her to act and, as the minutes trickled away, it had finally occurred to him that she wasn't going to do anything at all.

The guard jerked hard at his wrists, slamming him into the wall and jarring his brain loose in his skull. Bellamy looked up dazedly and realized that they were finally nearing the exit, a circle of natural light glimmering up ahead. He could hear the pounding of a waterfall and dimly thought,  _Another one?_ Was this mountain surrounded by waterfalls? 

_They conceal the entrances,_ he remembered with a sense of dull foreboding.  _So nobody can find us._  He hoped that whatever Clarke was planning worked, because everything else so far had been an enormous storm of crap.

" _Hos op, honon,_ " the guard grunted.

"I take it you don't realize that not everyone speaks Grounder," Bellamy mumbled, pushing his tongue along his gums. The taste of blood and metal was overpowering there and he resisted the urge to spit or swallow.

" _Shof op, Skaikru skrish,_ " the guard barked, and Bellamy was pleased to hear some heat in his tone. He pulled back on the rope, forcing the man to drag him into the sunlight, out into the open air.

It was still the early hours of morning and the hazy light made them all pause a moment, blinking past the blindness of the dark cave. In front of them a curtain of thundering water obscured the rest of the world. Bellamy's senses were on high alert, but there was no movement around him. The slick stone ledge they stood on was only a dozen feet wide--maybe he could catch one of the Grounders off guard and tackle him into the pool below. Then again, with his hands tied in front of him he was less likely to make it out of there than his opponent. Also, it was about a hundred feet to the bottom. And lined with rocks. And he'd never really learned to swim. 

He tried not to think too hard about that. Going out with a fight was better than nothing.

"Actually, that's a lie," he taunted, trying to keep the guards distracted. One of the men unholstered a pistol and cocked it. Bellamy turned to address the blank gray face of his unreadable skeletal mask. "I do know one phrase in Grounder."

A feathered arrow whistled through the air and punched into the guard's neck, sending a spurt of blood spouting from the other side. The gun in his hand went off, the bullet  _spanging_ past Bellamy's shoulder and into the tunnel behind him, where it echoed raucously. The guard went down, choking, as his companion drew a gun from his waist. A second arrow flew past him and he turned, firing toward the shooter, but Octavia had already seized the moment. Running at the rock wall behind her for momentum, she took a step up onto an outcropping and spun in the air, her booted foot connecting with the side of the guard's head with a  _crack_ that drove him to his knees.

The man was dazed but not down, and his heavy, gloved hand reached for her ankle. Bellamy was already there, bringing his heel all the way up to the guard's shoulder. Without hesitation, he leaned his weight into it, shoving the guard backwards, off the ledge, and down, down, down into the punishing water. Breathing hard, the Blakes watched him tumble along the rocks, his body disappearing into the foamy spray at the base of the pool.

" _Yu gonplei ste odon,_ " Bellamy panted, shaking his damp hair out of his eyes. "You son of a bitch."

He turned away from the edge to face his sister as she clawed the gag free from her mouth. Her neck was smeared with dried blood, her brown hair a tangle around her face. Their hands were still bound in front of them, but they came together anyway, as well as they could. Octavia pressed her forehead against his shoulder and he took what felt like his first deep breath in days, resting his chin on the top of her head. 

"Thanks for coming for me, Big Brother," she said, her voice muffled by his jacket. He pushed away and ducked his chin to catch her eye.

"Always," he said fiercely. When she gave him a weary smile, he chuckled. "Besides, I'm the only Sky Person who's ever had a sibling. I couldn't give that up, now could I?"

Her expression grew dark. "No thanks to Clarke," she muttered, turning away. Fractured sunlight filtered through the falls and fell dazzlingly onto the droplets that had gathered in her hair. 

" _Daun nou ste ridiyo,_ " a voice from behind them chided. "She brought me here." 

They turned to see Lincoln striding up the path to the ledge, a bow clutched in one hand and a quiver of arrows across his back. Octavia ran to him, and Bellamy stared bitterly at his feet in anticipation of yet another joyful reunion. Instead, Lincoln grabbed her by the rope trailing from her wrists and jolted her to a halt. Dropping the bow, he drew a knife and cut through her bonds with ruthless efficiency.

"What were you doing here, Octavia?" he demanded, sweeping the slashed rope away. He cupped her jaw and looked her over, his eyes taking in every scrape and bruise along her face. "I told you to stay at camp."

"No," she snapped, tossing her head. "You  _left_  me at camp and disappeared without telling me where you were going. So I tried to follow you, and that's when the  _bronwada_  from Sienna's unit found me and brought me here."

Lincoln sighed. His tone was nearly apologetic. "I thought you were asleep."

"I wasn't."

"Enough." Bellamy stepped forward and held his hands out impatiently. When his bonds were cut, he dropped the rope over the ledge. "We have to move. The vessel's dead and the ritual went bust. We're back to square one." 

Lincoln's brow furrowed and he glanced from Octavia to Blake with deep, black doubt. "Clarke wouldn't let that happen. Too much depends on it."

The reminder stoked the hissing embers of anger in Bellamy's chest. He felt his lip curl. "Yeah, I've noticed."

Octavia growled impatiently, pulling at Lincoln's shoulder. "What in the hell are  _either_  of you talking about? Lincoln, how did you find us? How did you know where they were going to bring us out?"

Lincoln sent Bellamy a questioning look and nodded toward him with his chin. "Ask your brother."

Oh. Right.

Bellamy swept his tongue along the ridge of his gums, dislodging the little metal capsule there. He'd had it tucked against his upper lip so long that he'd nearly forgotten it was there. Now he spat it into his open palm where it glowed a deep, blood red.

"What is that?" Octavia whispered.

"It's a tracker," Bellamy replied gruffly. Having once had one dug out of his arm, he'd recognized the shape of it when Clarke's tongue pushed it into his mouth. "Clarke gave it to me." Her name was a blade lodged in his throat. He tried not to remember the look on her face as she drew away--the desperate hope that he would understand, the fear that he never would. 

Swallowing became briefly impossible. He could tell that Octavia and Lincoln were looking at him, and he had no idea how many emotions his face was betraying. Pivoting on an impulse, he hurled the blinking little device into the falls. No one said a thing.

Bellamy jerked his head in the general direction of the cave. "Clarke is trying to negotiate with Lexa now. We can't be here when she gets out." He dropped to his knees near the Grounder and began digging through his cloak and armor. The man had an assortment of knives, but nothing beat the pistol lying next to him. 

Lincoln stared at Bellamy like he was out of his mind. "Gets out--? We can't leave her in there. She ruined a sacred ritual--"

"No," Bellamy interrupted impatiently, checking the pistol's magazine. Two bullets. Damn. He glanced up. "I did that. I shot the place up and killed the vessel." 

He might have just confessed to eating a baby; Lincoln's face drained of color. "You--? Why?" 

He could see on Lincoln's face that what he'd done was a special kind of Grounder bad, but he didn't particularly care. He shoved the pistol into the waistband of his pants and stood, rolling the Grounder over with his toe, nudging him toward the edge of the falls.

"They were going to kill Octavia," he said in a hard voice. "They were going to drain her into a bowl and drink her blood." 

Lincoln was not a demonstrative man, so it was damned gratifying to see his Adam's apple bob up and down with a type of fearful understanding. His hand slid automatically up Octavia's back, as though to make sure she was really there. His reaction seemed to unnerve her, because she touched his cheek, her voice gentle.

"I'm fine," she murmured reassuringly. "Bellamy got me out."

Lincoln gazed at her a long moment, a deep and tortured conflict in his eyes.  Bellamy had already had this internal battle; he turned away, giving the guard's body a final kick off the ledge and into the pool. There was still a puddle of blood congealing near his feet, but the spray from the falls would erase it soon enough.  

"Bellamy," Lincoln said seriously, his tone low and urgent. "There's nothing worse you could've done in my people's eyes. Even the naysayers will change their minds. You've united them against us."

Bellamy swallowed hard and gazed over the ledge, unable to meet Lincoln's punishing gaze. "Yeah, well. It's not too late. Clarke will find a way to--"

Lincoln cut him off brusquely. "They'll kill Clarke. After something like this...they'll have no other choice."

Bellamy faced them again, fighting back both anger and regret. He wasn't sorry for his actions. He couldn't be. "Clarke is smart," he said grudgingly. "She'll think of something. Right now we have to go to Camp Jaha and get everyone ready."  

"Ready for what?" Octavia asked like she already knew.

Bellamy spared the dark cavern one last glance before brushing past his sister and heading down the path. "War."

********************

Lincoln led them to a troop of horses at the base of the mountain. The riderless creatures were stepping nervously and snorting clouds of gray fog in the early morning air. 

"We should only take two horses," Bellamy ordered as they approached. "We don't want them knowing it's more than just the two of us."

He stepped up to a big, black-coated beast. It was a war horse, and it looked like it could ride for miles without even noticing. It could easily carry him and Octavia. He had to grab the stallion's mane and jump before he could swing a leg over. The thing stamped its sharp hooves into the wet ground, sending Bellamy lurching forward, and for the first time he considered how it would feel to be trampled.

"There's a trail that goes around this side of the mountain," Lincoln was saying as he picked out a smaller, sleeker mare. "It will get you back to Camp Jaha faster--in a matter of hours if you push it. But you'll be out in the open. No protection but speed."

"Good thing I'm in a hurry then," Bellamy said dryly. He reached down and offered his hand to Octavia. "Let's go."

She'd been quiet the whole walk down, but now she met his gaze and folded her arms. "I'm not going."

He had a brief but vivid memory of trying to force her under their floor when she was five. She'd clung to the panels with her fingers and toes, refusing to go in. When he explained why she needed to hide, she'd given him that same stubborn look and said, "If Mom can only have one kid,  _you_  should go in there and I'll be you."

"We don't have time for this," he warned now.

" _I_  do," she replied hotly. "This is stupid. We had a truce once. We were one  _people_  once. We've been listening to Lexa and Clarke tell us who we are and who our enemies are, who's allowed to live and who has to die. Well, I'm a Grounder. I won't fight my own people."

He closed his eyes and took a breath. "Octavia," he reminded her sternly, "they were going to kill you."

"So was Clarke."

"Clarke was just trying to save our people." What the hell was he doing defending Clarke? 

"Not my people."

Bellamy was starting to get angry at too many things. The stallion shook its shaggy head and strained forward, ready to move. He worked his fingers into its mane and dug in hard with his heels, keeping it still. "Where are you gonna go? Nothing is safe around here."

She shook her head in disgust and turned away, her nimble fingers reaching up to twist her hair into braids. "Bell, why are you even arguing with me? We left, remember? Both of us. Camp Jaha isn't our home and it never was." 

"You're not exactly giving me a better alternative right now," he pointed out, his temper rising.

"We can go to Luna's clan," Lincoln intervened quietly. Bellamy raised his head and appraised the other man carefully. Lincoln sat patiently on the chestnut horse, his dark eyes unreadable. "It's east of here, to the sea. They let outsiders in."

Bellamy was feeling outflanked. He turned the stallion to face Lincoln, glad to be seated higher than him. "So you too, huh?" 

"I don't belong either," Lincoln replied simply. "Not anywhere."

Securing her braids at the base of her skull, Octavia stepped up to Bellamy's mount and laid her hand on his knee. Her expression had switched from belligerent to imploring, which was the other tactic she'd always used. "Family is all we have," she reminded him. "We take care of each other.  _That's_ the most important thing. "

The sun was up in earnest now--the day was going to be warm. Bellamy squinted at the horizon, trying to ignore the dark shape of the mountain at their backs. Clarke was still in there, trapped like a beating heart under piles of black stone. At the camp, his friends were waking up to a day of boredom, listless patrol, target practice, and blissful ignorance. Some of them were still healing from their wounds at Mount Weather. 

He made up his mind.

As he dismounted, he saw Octavia exchange a glance with Lincoln. "What are you doing?" she demanded when he dropped to the ground.

"Agreeing with you," he replied shortly, brushing his hands on the sides of his pants. He glanced up at Lincoln, who understood immediately and swung gracefully off his mount. "Luna's clan is the safest place for you. You should go there. Now."

Wordlessly, Lincoln laid his hand on Bellamy's shoulder, then turned away and climbed onto the black stallion. Octavia's expression tightened.

"You have to come with us," she said querulously, shying away when he moved toward her. He put his hands on her shoulders to keep her in place, noting how easily she wore the same skins as the Grounders, moved with the same animal grace. Her small, pointed face was fierce and determined. Wherever she went, she wouldn't be an outsider there long.

"I have to go back, O," he said, his brows pulling together. "I started something back in that cave. Now I have to finish it."

She shook her head incredulously. "I don't believe this. You're staying for  _Clarke?_ "

"I'm staying for Camp Jaha. They're my responsibility too."

Before she could argue more he hugged her, roughly, swallowing past the fear and dread. When she drew away he pushed her toward the big black stallion and watched her climb up. 

"You have one of those trackers?" he asked Lincoln as Octavia settled herself behind him. Lincoln inclined his head and Bellamy nodded to himself. "When you get where you're going, turn it on and keep it somewhere safe. Maybe..." He licked his lips and shrugged. "Maybe I'll make it there at some point."

Octavia's eyes were fixed on him, her expression tougher than he knew she felt. "May we meet again then, Big Brother."

Lincoln kicked the horse and it surged forward into the morning's streaming sunlight, away from danger, toward the sea. Bellamy watched them ride, Octavia holding Lincoln's bow at waist level, her other arm around the solid wall of his body. It was true, what she said--family was the most important thing. But Lincoln was her family now too.

They rode over a ridge and disappeared into the glare. Bellamy was alone.

The sounds of morning worked their way into his ears. The trees buzzed with cicadas and water rushed down the face of the mountain behind him, tumbling into the pool below. The damp grass grew flat beneath his indecisive feet. Now was the time to move.

With a single backwards glance, he mounted the sleek brown mare and took off at a trot in the opposite direction of Lincoln and Octavia, toward Camp Jaha, leaving the giant stone edifice behind.

"May we meet again," he murmured, not really sure to whom.


	5. Return

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein everyone learns a lesson about trust and also our intrepid heroes give speeches of varying lengths.
> 
> Because, for real, how has Bellamy not given a speech in so long? Like, for all of Season 2 was he just sitting there thinking, "I could give a blood-pumping, boner-inducing, good-ole-fashioned haranguing to everyone in the vicinity, but nah, Kane and Abby have this under control, why don't I cover up my beautiful body with this guard uniform that buttons all the way up my neck"?
> 
> Oh, a hat for good measure? Fuck you, the 100 costume designers.
> 
> Right, so anyway, this chapter has my second favorite couple in it too, because I wanted to write them in here somewhere (note: not John Murphy and Jaha. Yet.)

"Well?" Lexa demanded. "What do you have to say for yourself?"

The sound of dripping water echoed in the cavern.

Clarke said nothing. Her pack was still next to her foot. If she could just get the top flap open, there were knives in there that she had taken from dead Grounders. She could use them. Lexa's sword was sheathed and she wouldn't be expecting an attack. Besides, Clarke had held her own in a fight against a Grounder leader before.

_Except Anya was drugged to hell and had bitten a chunk out of her own arm that day._  Bellamy's voice in her head again. 

Besides, killing Lexa wouldn't stop the Grounder armies from attacking Camp Jaha without her. The men Clarke had taken the weapons from--before she killed them, she'd listened. They were under the command of Mikkel, the most aggressive of the clan leaders. He was the one who kept sending soldiers to her borders, to test them, to search for weaknesses. He'd ordered several of them to assassinate her. He would attack in an instant whether Lexa was there or not.

_But if you kill her now, you might make it back to Camp Jaha. You can still prepare them for an attack._

What other option did she have, now that everything had gone to hell?

"So," she said out loud, surprised at how strong and confident her voice could be. "You obviously know by now that we killed everyone in Mount Weather."

Lexa smiled, showing her teeth. "You brought all your wounded back through the woods, so yes, we figured as much. And--" she gave Clarke a significant look, "--we let you pass unharmed."

Figured as much, huh? So they were still avoiding Mount Weather, with its heavy air of death and superstition. Clarke made her voice hard and uncompromising. "And  _we_  killed off your greatest enemy. Our truce should remain intact."

Lexa shook her head, intractable as always. She kept circling, forcing Clarke to turn her head in order to keep an eye on her. "You're still on our land, Clarke. And we're starting to get news that people who stray too close to your camp don't come back. There are rumors that you're using the Mountain Men's weapons."

Once upon a time, Clarke would have blanched at the accusation. Now she shrugged. "Maybe we are. So what? We're using them to defend ourselves."

Among the rubble, the priestess gave a feeble cough. Lexa glanced down at her and immediately ceased her pacing, her expression sharp. The priestess' leg was still sluggishly pulsing blood, and her dusty hands had fallen away from the wound. Clarke felt that familiar pang of wonderment as Lexa  _switched_  from a ruthless darkness to a young, exasperated sadness. 

"You're too much like the Mountain Men," Lexa said with a significant nod at the priestess. She knelt by the old woman's side and staunched the wound with her own bare hands. "It would be wise for us to eliminate you before we let you take over what they started." She said it like someone trying to choose the best crops to plant.

"You know me," Clarke protested. "You know I wouldn't do that." She nudged the flap of her pack open with her knee. She could see the knives gleaming at the bottom.

Lexa looked up, stilling Clarke's lowering fingers. "I know you somehow killed them all. And I know you're angry with me." She saw Clarke open her mouth and held up a hand that was shining with blood. "Maybe with good reason. That is worse.  You're a threat, Clarke. To me, and to all my people." She turned back to her ministrations, shaking her head. The vessel's body was nearby, and she tugged at the thick belt that had tied his robes together. 

Clarke's heart was doubling over on itself as she sank toward the floor, her eyes fixed on Lexa, who was using the belt as a tourniquet on the priestess' leg.  _Keep talking,_  she thought.  _Keep her distracted_.  

"That's right," she bit out with a hard smile. She made her voice unshakable black stone. "I am a threat. So you're already too late." Her groping fingers closed around one of the Grounder knives. She rose, shifting the knife into her sleeve. "If you come after us, we will end you. We have Mount Weather's defenses and we're ready to use them." 

She'd been weak around Lexa too long. Lexa had become her mentor, her guide, nearly her lover, and it had made Clarke deferential to the point of subservience. Now was the time to put a stop to that. She took a step toward Lexa, and Lexa looked up. 

Clarke could see how much her boldness surprised the other woman. The first glimmer of fear flickered across Lexa's face, but it might have been the reflection from the pool. 

"You're bluffing," Lexa said with too much certainty. "You couldn't have created a strong enough defense. Not in just a few months." Her quick fingers secured the belt around the priestess' leg.

"I don't really care what you think," Clarke replied, with as much indifference as she could manage. She took another step. One more and she'd be at Lexa's side. Her hand would line up perfectly with Lexa's neck. This could all be over.

"Then why are you here?" Lexa asked.

It was a question that demanded an answer, but unfortunately, in that moment, Clarke's looked past Lexa's shoulder and saw that the vessel's body had shifted. The hem of his robe had been pulled back, just a little, and Clarke could see the deep red pulse of the tracker attached near the seam. A new idea occurred to her.

_Bellamy heard my bluff. If he has a scanner, he can track my position. He can prepare the camp. And then we can target the real threat, because the real threat isn't Lexa._ An old thought--a one-time favorite thought--nagged at her:  _No one needs to die._ On the heels of this thought was another:  _But Bellamy might already be dead._

The edge of the knife bit against her forearm as she hesitated. She could slide the blade into Lexa's neck right now or she could trust that Bellamy was still alive, that he still might help her.

"Clarke?" Lexa pressed, craning her head up. "Why are you here?"

Clarke made her choice. "Actually, I came to assassinate you." 

Then she let the knife drop from her sleeve and clatter on the stone floor. It got exactly the reaction she'd hoped. As Lexa scrabbled for the knife and rolled to her feet, Clarke stepped swiftly to the vessel's side, stooped to his hem, and plucked the tracker free.

Lexa didn't notice. When Clarke straightened up, Lexa was examining the knife with sheer ferocity in her eyes. She ran her fingertip up the blade, testing the point against the pad of her thumb.

"Where did you get this?"

The stubby knife, no more than a sharpened chunk of obsidian wrapped in canvas, looked so much deadlier in Lexa's small hand. Clarke had gone all in on a bluff. It seemed a fatal decision now. She closed her hand around the active tracker and shoved it deep into her pocket.

"I got it from Mikkel," she lied. When Lexa's eyes widened, she made herself smile. "Yes, one of your generals. He made contact with my people. He also told me that your clans are breaking apart over  _your_  decision to deal with the Mountain Men." She spread her arms, indicating the echoing cavern around them. "He explained this whole ritual to me and told me that there were some sacred places you might visit. We've been sending our people out here for weeks, waiting for you to kidnap one of them so we could track you here and kill you."

"He approached you?" Lexa's face was uncertain, and that made her somehow more dangerous than before. "To profane a sacred ritual?"

"He couldn't do it himself," Clarke reminded her. "To even enter here would be the worst kind of sacrilege, wouldn't it?" All of the knowledge she had picked up from eavesdropping, from Lincoln, had returned to her seamlessly. "He sent his men to kill us at first. When none of them made it back, he approached us. He saw our strength. He decided to fight  _you_  instead." She began to circle Lexa now, her empty hands at her sides. "Isn't it true that the men who died mysteriously close to our camp were Mikkel's men? We proved ourselves. He's afraid of  _us_  now. He's not afraid of you."

She held her breath. Her footsteps rasped across the stone as she slowly eased around the room. On the floor, the priestess' breath fluttered uncertainly. Lexa stared at the knife, her black rage reflected in the shining obsidian.

"If it's true," she said slowly, bitingly. "He and his clan will suffer for it. And you--" Her eyes shifted up and caught Clarke mid-stride, skewered her there like a spear through her lungs. Clarke felt the safe ground shift and crack beneath her feet. 

"I didn't go through with it," she pointed out in a low, conciliatory voice. "I...I couldn't kill you."

That, at least, was true. And for the first time she could see belief creeping back into Lexa's expression. "You couldn't..." she echoed, nodding to herself. "You came here to kill me, but you didn't. Even with Octavia beneath the knife." She studied Clarke, her narrow, clever eyes glittering. "And those words you said to Bellamy. You knew he wouldn't understand them. They were meant for me."

The certainty in her voice made Clarke breathless, and she wasn't about to argue the point. The feelings that she had for Lexa, complicated as they were, might just save her life.

"Yes." Clarke swallowed, grasping for truth. "I wanted to spare your life. I wanted to avoid a war with you."

Lexa smiled a knife-edge smile. "So did I. But we have our people to think of." 

_And you keep killing every man who gets close to me._  She pushed the thought down. She had to believe that Lincoln had found them in time. She had to believe Bellamy and Octavia were alive.

Lexa nodded decisively, slipping the knife into her belt. "We will make your accusations to Mikkel. I will investigate your claims and see your camp for myself. You have bought your life, Clarke. For now."

Her tone was final, but for a long moment Lexa just stood there, her expression deeply conflicted. Clarke held her breath and said nothing. Then, with a regretful shake of her head, Lexa knelt by the priestess' side and undid the tourniquet's knots with deft fingers. The belt fell away and blood leaked freely down the old woman's leg. Clarke took a step forward, appalled, but the priestess' eyes were already drifting close.

"There is always a price," Lexa murmured without looking up. "Even if your camp is as strong as you say, the desecration of this ritual would never be forgiven. We must pretend it never happened. For the good of all our people."

The priestess' head drooped to her chest. Clarke's hands were clenched so tightly they'd gone numb. Every path in front of her was as dark and twisted as the labyrinthine tunnels in this mountain. Every one of her choices ended in death.

_Bellamy might still be out there. If he helps you, if he prepares Camp Jaha..._

It was a flimsy plan, to rely on a man who probably hated her guts. But it couldn't be helped. She was done working alone. She was done pretending that she didn't need someone to rely on. Besides, she had loved a lot of people in her life but, aside from her father, Bellamy was the only one she had ever trusted completely.

***********

On the long journey back to Camp Jaha, Bellamy found himself with five hours to ride himself sore, sunburned, and exhausted. He also had five hours to think too much about too many things. Detouring by the bunker along the way didn't help anything--the tiny room was a dark pit as always, but as he filled a pack with equipment he had to endure Clarke's scent in the air. On his way back up the ladder he found himself fighting memories of her bare thighs against his shoulders, of the taste of her against his tongue. It felt like a lifetime ago.

_She hasn't changed,_  an insistent voice in his head reminded him. But then, he hadn't either.

The rest of the ride was a blur back through the familiar trees, the horse stepping with automatic caution along the soft path, never stumbling over roots or tangling itself in the foliage. When he got to the perimeter of Camp Jaha, he whistled the  _all clear_  notes, a three-pitch run, and waited for the patrolling guard. They appeared silently in the brush, better at approaching quietly than he would have given them credit for. It was something. But likely not enough.

His horse drew a few curious glances, but no one spoke a word as they flanked him and escorted him to the gate. He eyed the compound with fresh eyes as it opened, and his assessment left a hollow feeling in the pit of his stomach. Guards with rifles every three dozen meters, most of them not even at attention. The gate was topped with spikes but the perimeter was mostly old boards slatted between the cables of the electric fence. Not enough to keep Grounders out. Not nearly.

Clarke's last act to him had been a request, an act of trust. He hadn't realized it before, but he saw it now. She had given him the tracker, Lincoln, her last lifeline. She had sacrificed her only escape plan for him.  _Just to get you back here, though_ , he reminded himself.  _So do something about it already._

A uniformed man with a hard look to him reached up and grabbed Bellamy's horse by the mane. He felt the mare's hooves slide to a stop in several inches of thick mud. The rain had beaten Camp Jaha into a new, bedraggled shape. Behind him, the gate scraped closed over the rutted ground. 

"Private Blake," the man said crisply. "You were seen departing this camp on an unscheduled patrol with unauthorized firearms three days ago. Please make a full report to the Chancellor immediately."

Bellamy had forgotten about the bullshit that made this camp run, bullshit that he absolutely didn't have time for. "Sure. Which Chancellor's in charge today?" he asked dryly.

It was the wrong thing to say. The man visibly stiffened, as though Bellamy had just announced himself a hostile threat. "If you are uncooperative, I'm afraid that I'll have to escort you to Chancellor Griffin myself."

"Yeah, okay," he muttered. "I'm going already." He dismounted, then looked the man up and down. "You're a major?" The man narrowed his eyes at Bellamy's tone but said nothing. "I need you to listen to me," Bellamy ordered urgently. "There is an army of Grounders not too far from here getting ready to attack this camp. You need to start getting people ready. Now."

Without waiting for a response, Bellamy turned and walked purposefully into the camp. The sun was beating down on his neck, but the ground was still soft beneath his boots. People milled around at the mess tables, tinkering or talking quietly. Across the compound, he could hear the distant  _thud_ of batons on armor in the training grounds. Everything had the tang of oil and the lingering bad taste in the mouth brought on by too many bodies.

_I can't believe I'm here to protect this hole,_  he thought with a mental sigh. He was glad he'd let Octavia go.

He glanced back; the major was eyeing him suspiciously and speaking into his handheld radio. Bellamy knew what he had to do now, and it sure as hell wasn't going to involve a long debate with the Council or either Chancellors. 

Quickly sidestepping the spidery metal frame of the Ark, Bellamy moved through the crush of people toward Raven's pod. It was a tiny makeshift cabin, vaguely round and cobbled together out of parts from an old dropship, but something about it put him more at ease. Maybe it was the blinking sign Wick had rigged up out front that said "RAVEN'S WING" in neon letters, or the hand-written note beneath it that read "Fuck off" in an untidy scrawl.

A ragged red curtain hung in the entrance as a makeshift door, musty and damp from the rain. Bellamy ducked past it and stepped into a giant hexagonal toolbox. Wrenches, screwdrivers, and metal parts were laid everywhere, and somewhere beneath the layers of scrap were the shapes of workbenches, cabinets, and a bed. The unsettlingly strong smell of gasoline lingered in the air. Raven and Wick were sitting together in the middle of the floor, absorbed in layers of blueprints.

Wick looked up at the entrance, his merry eyes giving Bellamy a quick once-over. "Hm," he muttered in a disappointed tone, returning to his project. "I went full in on a wager that he'd die after one day in the forest. How many has it been?"

Raven didn't bother looking up from her work. "Almost three." Smug amusement twitched across her full lips. "I gave him a week."

"Well, there's still time for you to be wrong, then."

Bellamy swayed in the entrance, saddle-sore and unamused. His pack slid free from his shoulder and he dropped it on the only bare patch of floor he could find. "What do you have that can keep twelve armies of Grounders out of this camp?" he demanded, taking a step inside. Beads of sweat dripped from the tip of his nose and the ends of his hair. He hadn't realized how hot and itchy he was until he stepped into the relative cool of the pod. When the pair didn't respond, he pressed his boot heel purposely onto a pile of plastic parts. They gave a satisfying crack beneath his weight.

Raven and Wick stood simultaneously, looking for all the world like anxious parents at a colicky baby. At least he had their attention. "Nothing," Raven said quickly, her dark brows drawn together. "Why?"

_Clarke was going to let my sister die, so I pissed off the whole Grounder nation to stop her._  He couldn't bring himself to say it, even as he realized, looking into Raven's dark, hooded eyes, that she was maybe the only person who would really understand his reasoning. She had, after all, been willing to start a war over Finn.

"I found Clarke," he said instead. "She's lying to Lexa right now about how good our stronghold is so the Grounders don't bring in every army they have to destroy us. I'm here to make sure we have a back-up plan."

There was a horrified silence. Raven yanked out and then refashioned her ponytail higher on her head, her eyes already taking on a faraway look. Wick raised his hand hesitantly, looking from Raven to Bellamy.

"Is the back-up plan not dying? Because I'm for that."

Bellamy ignored him, his eyes on Raven. She was staring into nothing, her eyes darting back and forth at some distant possibility. Absently, she removed her red jacket and tossed it to him.

"Don't get sweat all over my crap," she ordered briskly. Stripped to her tank top, she stepped carefully around the piles on the floor toward a cabinet. Her braced leg stuck out to one side as she knelt clumsily and began to dig through the piles. Bellamy scrubbed the rough fabric over his face and hair before tossing it aside.

"Well?" he demanded.

"How much of a timeline are you giving me?" she asked, her voice muffled. He could only see her bottom half; the rest of her had disappeared into a pile of junk. He realized Wick was watching him watch her and he looked away, down at the pack near his feet. It reminded him.

"I don't know," he said, opening the top flap. "But Clarke had some trackers with her that she got from Mount Weather. I'm not sure how many, but she might still be able to attach one to a guard, or even to Lexa."

"Or she might bring one back with her," Wick suggested. Bellamy didn't know how to respond to that. He found the scanner he'd taken from the bunker and tossed it across the room at Wick, who caught it deftly with one hand. 

Bellamy straightened up. "Either way, if she managed it, you've got until a red dot shows up at our position. If she didn't manage it..." he trailed off. Wick studied the dark screen. 

"I'm already seeing an active tracker on here," he noted. "Pretty far northeast of here."

"Yeah, that's where I--left her," Bellamy confirmed, swallowing hard.

"Hold up..." Wick's brow furrowed and he ran a hand across the stubble on his chin. He looked up and met Bellamy's gaze. "It's moving toward us."

A foreboding silence fell. Bellamy glanced toward the cabinet impatiently.

"Raven," he urged, "tell me you've got something." His eyes traveled over her workshop, the bits and bolts scattered like so many useless puzzle pieces. After a moment she reappeared, pulling out a long roll of what looked like mesh screen. Bellamy followed her to her workbench, where she unrolled the screen and stood back, biting her lip.

"Well, I have been playing with this tech we brought back from Mount Weather," she said in her offhand way, although the bite of irritation in her tone didn't exactly make him optimistic. "But I don't think it was working for them either."

He fingered the material--it was light but strong. "What is it?"

"It was attached to frames in some of the walls along their bunker, probably the places they were most afraid would breach in an assault. It's basically just a really fine, really tough mesh, but when you run an electrical current through it, it creates kind of a barrier. Anything gets within five feet of the screen and-- _zap_ \--" She slapped her palm on the table for emphasis, making a pile of screws jump. "Fries the bug."

Bellamy appraised her sideways with one eyebrow raised. "Are Grounders our bugs in this scenario?"

"Ding ding ding, give the boy a prize," she said wryly, her full lips curled in a half-smile. 

"That's a hell of a buffer." An idea was forming rapidly in Bellamy's mind. He jabbed a finger at the roll of mesh. "You've got more of this?"

"Tons."

"So we could put it up around the compound. Like a wall."

Raven's smile faded. She ran a hand over the rough screen, smoothing it out across the table. "It's not that simple. See, the problem is, the mesh itself is pretty vulnerable. If you're not powering it constantly, someone could tear it to ribbons and move right on through." She folded her arms and glared down at the material as though it were misbehaving just to spite her. "And it takes a lot of juice to run--like, way more than we've got. And a wall that size? It'd drain the whole Ark to run it for even an hour."

Bellamy stared at the roll, his mind working furiously. "What about as a personal shield?" he asked. "That would use less of it, right? So less power?" 

She looked thoughtful at the question. "Could work if you only gave it to the soldiers,  _and_  if your opponent was trying to get in close for hand-to-hand combat," she admitted. 

Across the room, Wick finally interjected. "But isn't that scenario the kind of thing we're trying to avoid? We want to keep them out  _there_ , right? If we're letting them into the compound, it's already too late."

"I'm not hearing any better ideas from you," Bellamy growled, his patience completely ground away by the events of the day. Raven gave him a look from under her heavy lids, but Wick shrugged Bellamy off in his loose-limbed way.

"And you won't," he said easily. "You already had one: build the wall around the camp. You know exactly where the Grounders are--" he waved the scanner for emphasis "--so you wait until they get here, then power it up."

Raven sighed, rolling the screen back up. "We don't have enough power to keep them out, were you not listening?"

Wick tossed her an annoyed look. "Yeah, actually, I was. And I heard Bellamy say that Clarke is out there right now convincing them that we're armed to the teeth and ready to fight. So we don't need to  _actually_  fight them, we just need to help convince them that we're not worth the effort. That means powering the wall for five, ten minutes tops. We can do that."

"That's only if Clarke convinces them not to fight us, and that's not going to happen," Bellamy said, absently fingering a rusted wrench in front of him. He fought down a surge of guilt--he refused to be sorry for saving Octavia's life. "I saw them preparing for war myself. Clarke's just being..."  _Insane? Stubborn? Brave? Stupid?_ "...Clarke."

He looked up to see that Raven was watching him carefully, her eyes narrowed. She folded her arms, scrutinizing him with a knowing look. "The hell happened between you two?"

He set the wrench back down on the bench, where it made a surprisingly loud  _clink_. "Forget about Clarke," he said roughly. "This isn't about her."

Raven took a step backwards next to Wick, her small hand sliding into his. He glanced down at her with a warming smile. "I think it is," she said slowly, in her tenaciously aggressive way. "And Kyle's right. Look, I can make those individual shields or I can set up a wall around the camp--it's just going to depend on how much we trust Clarke to pull this off." Her free hand fell absently to the top of her leg. Not the braced one. The other one. The drill the Mountain Men used on her had left her skin twisted with a thick, knotted scar. "I'm alive because of her. A lot of people are."

Wick squeezed her hand and Bellamy fought back against the rise of an insistent thought-- _She did what she had to do. You would have understood if it was anyone else_.

"A lot of people are dead because of her too," he reminded her quietly.

Movement in the doorway. The three of them turned simultaneously as four troops strode into the little pod, kicking aside the carefully-arranged piles near the door. Tiny nuts and bolts skittered wildly across the floor.

"Hey!" Raven yelled furiously, surging forward. Wick caught her and held her back as Kane swept the curtain aside and walked in, his eyes diligently searching the room. They landed on Bellamy and stayed there. He clasped his hands behind his back and stood at attention as Abby followed him in. She moved with a slight limp now, but otherwise Mount Weather hadn't done much to change her.

"You're back," she said, her expression sagging with disappointment as she realized he was alone. "What happened? Why aren't you still out there?"

Kane glanced at her sidelong and, as usual, seemed to decide that subordination wasn't working for him. "More importantly," he said, clearing his throat and skewering Bellamy with his gaze. "Where have you been for the last three days with an unauthorized weapon? And why has Major Powell informed me that a Grounder attack is imminent on your information?"

Because he trusted Kane's relatively level head over Abby's position of authority, Bellamy addressed him instead. He took a careful step over a kerosene can and leaned in, keeping his voice low and urgent.

"Listen to me. We've got maybe six hours before they get here, and they're using guns now. Without Mount Weather in the way, we're their only enemies. We have to reinforce the camp."

Kane's eyes widened with what Bellamy was relieved to see was belief and fear. "You're sure they're going to attack."

He remembered the bleak resignation in Lincoln's voice.  _There's nothing worse you could've done in my people's eyes. You've united them against us._

He licked his lips and nodded. "Pretty sure, yeah."

Raven made a noise of protest, and Kane's gaze flicked to her. "We don't know that," she said. "Bellamy brought us a scanner so we can track their movements, and at least some of them are definitely headed here. But we don't know what they're going to do yet. Sir."

A profound silence fell. Wick raised the scanner to showcase the blinking dot and then dropped it back down to his side. Abby was watching Bellamy, her chestnut eyes too shrewd for his comfort. "You found her," she said in a breathy voice, as though Clarke's presence was a tangible thing around him. She took a careful step into the room. "Where is she?" she demanded. "What happened to my daughter?"

There was no point in denying it.

"She's fine," he said as convincingly as he could, realizing for the first time that day how much he wanted to believe it too. "She was trying to find a way to set the Grounders against each other." He wet his lips helplessly, trying to find the words. "It didn't work. So she's talking to Lexa now. She's going to try to convince her not to attack."

"We have to go get her!" Abby gasped, just as Kane murmured, "Then she's already dead." The guards lining the walls glanced at each other. Kane pressed his lips together and took a careful breath before turning to face her.

"Abby, we can't make any decisions on the assumption of Clarke's survival. She's one person alone in an enemy camp."

"I've seen her do some damage that way," Raven interjected sardonically, and it was hard for Bellamy to tell how she meant it. 

He tried for a calm, reasonable tone and didn't quite make it. "If the Grounders show up here, with or without Clarke, we have to be ready for that."

Kane nodded. "Agreed." He lifted his chin at the nearest guard. "Tell your soldiers we need to evacuate this camp by nightfall."

"Wait!" Bellamy balled his hands into fists. This familiar feeling of helplessness had dogged him all day, and he was starting to understand why Clarke had preferred to work alone. "They're not just going to let us go. We'll be easy to find. Besides...Clarke is counting on us." He looked to Abby now. "We have to back her up. If we're gone, they'll kill her."

"Sir?" The guard hadn't moved from his post, his eyes darting from Abby to Kane uncertainly. Abby widened her stance, as though physically blocking the doorway would be enough to stop him.

"No," she said, shaking her head. "No, Kane, we can't just leave her out there. We have to get the troops ready. We have to go _get_ her. We've let them think we're scared of them too long. We can't tolerate this sick sort of warfare from them anymore. We had a  _truce._ " 

"Abby..." Raven shook her head. "You can't risk--"

But Abby turned and left the pod without another glance at them, calling to someone outside as she went. Kane muttered a curse, dropping his hands from behind his back and moving close to the guard.

"Assemble a team for Abby if you have to, but the rest of these people need to be ready to move out in two hours. We're taking only what we can carry. Dismissed."

And then they were gone, leaving the floor a scattered mess and the curtain shoved aside. Daylight streamed in, blinding against the metal panels. Bellamy, Raven, and Wick glanced at each other unhappily.

"They'll split the camp over this," Raven said. 

"Aaaand we don't have enough time to get away anyway," Wick noted, looking down at the scanner, where the blinking dot was moving toward them at a slow, steady clip.

"If Clarke failed, none of it matters," Bellamy muttered. "Leaving won't save us if they really want us dead. Either way, it'll come to a fight. Might as well do it here."

Raven crossed her arms and chewed her lip. He'd seen her successfully mask fear before, so he could tell that she was doing it now. "So now what? Am I making shields, a wall, or are we packing?"

It was the question Bellamy had been turning over for hours: attack, reinforce, or run like hell. He'd been pushing Clarke out of his mind all day, but she kept sneaking back in. She wanted him to prepare but not to fight, and he'd been determined to ignore her. But seeing himself in Abby just now, in the way she was willing to throw the lives of all her people away just to save her family, made him pause. What Clarke had done back in the mountain was unforgivable, but that didn't make it wrong.

"We trust Clarke," he said with an effort. The instinct was still there, grudging where it was once instantaneous. "Make the wall."

A nervous grin crept over Wick's face, and he smacked the scanner into his palm. "Okay," he said, blowing out a breath. "This will be interesting."

Bellamy leveled a finger at him. "Keep it defensive. Anyone starts killing Grounders without cause and we're all dead."

He headed for the exit, but Raven followed on his heels, grabbing the sleeve of his jacket. He glanced down and found her squinting up at him suspiciously.

"What are you going to do?" she demanded.

He shrugged her hand away. "Nothing," he lied. He nodded toward the backpack he'd brought in, still sitting on the floor. "I brought back some stuff for you to work with. Put it to use."

"Bellamy--" Her tone stopped him mid-turn. He raised a brow. She looked uncomfortable for the first time. "Whatever's got you so pissed at Clarke...I get it, okay? I've been there. But all the crap she's had to do..." She shrugged and looked away, her expression tight. "It hurts her too."

He nodded, his eyes drifting downward. "I know," he murmured. 

There was a sudden spike of raised voices outside, and the first sounds of panic. It jolted him loose. With a tight nod at Raven, he ducked through the doorway and headed back into the light.

Outside, he found that crowds had formed and chaos had started. Some people were frantically grabbing things off the tables--cups, radios, markers, it didn't seem to matter--while others were lining up at the wall, clamoring for weapons. Abby was across the compound, speaking to a group of soldiers near the fence, while Kane was standing in the middle of a ring of people, holding a stun baton and waving for quiet.

"We have to assemble and leave in an orderly fashion!" he shouted over the roiling crowd. "The Grounders are headed for us and we want to avoid a conflict at all costs!"

"It's an attack!" someone among the masses shouted. "We have to fight!"

"We have to  _go_!"

"They're taking children!" someone else screamed from the fence. 

Bellamy strode into the group, shouldering people aside, ignoring the ripple of protest in his wake. Reaching the mess area, he stepped onto a bench and then all the way up onto the rickety table, pulling the pistol from his waistband as he went. Two shots left in the magazine were more than enough. Holding the gun over his head, he fired it into the air. 

Several screams went up, and then silence settled as all eyes turned to him. Kane and Abby were both frozen, staring up at him from the ground. He'd made his decision. Furious with her as he was, he still trusted her. He had to.  _I hope you know what you're doing, Clarke_ , he thought.

"We're not leaving," he called in a hard voice. "And we're not fighting. Not unless we have to. The Grounders are coming to check our defenses and that's  _all_ we're going to show them. We're not going to provoke them. We're not going to give them a reason to attack. We can keep the peace. We can keep our lives."

He scanned the crowd. Every face he looked into was alive with fear, but they were all still, they were all listening. "This is  _not_  the Ark!" he shouted, jabbing his finger at the metal station. "We don't have to listen to these people anymore. We elected Jaha  _in space_ \--and he's gone. No one elected Marcus Kane. No one elected Abby Griffin!"

Kane was muscling his way through the rapt crowd, his soldiers at his heels. Bellamy turned in a slow circle, addressing everyone else. "We're letting them pull us apart every time something happens, but we don't need to. Clarke is out there  _right now._ " He swallowed past the stone in his throat. "She's been protecting this camp for the last three months. By herself. In the damn  _woods._ " He swept a hand out at the wilderness for emphasis, gesturing with the nose of his pistol.   His voice rose to a hoarse shout. "And now she is risking her  _l_ _ife_ trying to put a stop to this. So we have to come together, right now." 

Kane appeared at the edge of the table, his hand reaching out to grip Bellamy's ankle. Bellamy stepped backwards, shaking him loose, ignoring his scrabbling grasp. "I don't care which Chancellor you want leading you later. Hold a vote or stage a coup or do whatever the hell you want. But right now Clarke is leading us and we have to follow." Kane hoisted himself onto the table. Without looking at him, Bellamy pushed his knee into Kane's chest, shoving him off. Kane landed on his back on the ground with a dull  _thump_ and a disgruntled groan.

"Arrest him," he coughed, and the guards closed in.

Bellamy danced back, his words coming quickly now, raspy from the strain. "Listen to Raven! Reinforce the fence--" The batons telescoped out with a snap. "Line the gate with soldiers--" The crackle of electricity "Make it look good--" Rough hands clamoring "--and wait for her signal!"

The tip of the baton caught him in the back and his legs went out from under him.


	6. Redress

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein our heroes meet up, everyone feels bad, and nobody apologizes, because have you ever watched this show?
> 
> Also, did I go a little Clexa for a second there? Kinda hard not to sometimes, what can I say.
> 
> This is the last chapter for real. Thanks, everyone, for making my first fanfic so fun! I thought I was just here to write porn, but whaddya know, I fit a plot in there somehow too.

_Well,_  thought Clarke.  _This could be worse._

Night was falling and the Grounders moved on Camp Jaha. Clarke was on the back of Lexa's horse in a long caravan of Grounder troops and generals. She wasn't tied up, because, well, what was the point of trying to escape now? All around her was the steady clop of hooves over the beaten path. Ahead of her, the trees closed in on themselves.

It had been a tense afternoon, and so far Clarke had no way of knowing whether Lexa believed her story any more or less than before.

Upon emerging from the mountain that morning, they had both stood in blinking surprise at the empty exit to the waterfall. No sign of Bellamy or Octavia. No sign of the guards. Clarke's throat had coated itself in fear as her eyes searched the slick stone, the crushing falls, the bright morning.

Lexa, on the other hand, had knelt near a dark puddle and brushed the surface with two fingers, painting them a bright, shocking red. Before Clarke could process half a thought-- _Bellamy would never die on his knees--_ Lexa raised her fingers to her tongue. With wrinkled lips, she'd spat on the ground and risen to her feet. On her face was a look of greatest distaste.

"My men's blood, not yours," she'd observed quietly. Beneath the thrill of relief, Clarke felt a surge of incredulity.

"You know what we  _taste_  like?"

It had been strange, Clarke reflected now, as the horse's haunches jolted her from side to side in the gathering dark: Lexa hadn't seemed angry at the possibility of Bellamy's escape or of her guards' death. Instead, she'd stepped forward and touched her rusty fingers to the tips of Clarke's blonde hair, then brushed them across her neck.

"You taste like the sun," she'd said with an enigmatic smile.

The rest of the day had been more stressful but certainly not more confusing than that. Now Clarke's arms were secured around Lexa's waist, and Lexa's slender body was solid against her chest. A cool breeze was picking up as they rode along the path, making her shiver. Lexa, clad in her stiff leather armor, offered little warmth.

The gathering gloom was filled with horses snorting and the relentless pounding of booted feet. It had been Clarke's sincerest hope that she and Lexa would accuse Mikkel in private, visit Camp Jaha alone, and leave the masses out of it.

Lexa had had other ideas. Instead, she had taken Clarke directly to her camp, just south of the mountain. Pushing right into a mass of bodies, she'd given Clarke no choice but to follow with a similar stride and feign indifference to the shouts and cries around her. Clarke had made her face a mask, her hands shaking as they checked the tracker in her pocket.

The trial had been short and to the point. Lexa found the largest, hairiest, most heavily-scarred man there and approached him without fear. She barely came up to his chest. "You stand accused, Mikkel," she'd stated in cold Trigedasleng, causing the murmurs in the crowd to die down immediately. "Of treason against your commander and attempted assassination."

Of course he had denied it. Denied meeting with Clarke. Denied having ever been to Camp Jaha or spoken with the Sky People since the truce broke. Which was the truth. But then there were the knives. His knives. The ones he'd given to his men to assassinate Clarke, against Lexa's explicit orders. He'd had no explanation for those.

And Clarke, who had wondered how she would feel adding unfair criminal accusations to the list of things she was willing to do for her people, had stared into his fathomless, murderous eyes and felt nothing at all. "That's him," she'd said evenly. "He gave me the knives. He told me to kill you."

"I didn't," he barked back immediately. "I wanted her dead."

"We'll see," was Lexa's only response. She'd had Mikkel bound and tied to a horse. The envoys and soldiers from his clan were placed in isolation. All the other warriors--and oh, there were a lot of them--had strapped on their weapons and prepared to depart for Camp Jaha.

Looking around herself now, Clarke realized with bitterness that the Grounders were only ever preparing for war. Diplomacy was not in their vocabulary or their blood. Everyone was holding axes and spears. White paint smeared their faces; ashes darkened their eyes. 

_This is a show,_  she thought. Even if Camp Jaha appeared strong, she realized now, that would only incite their bloodlust, make the victory that much sweeter. No defenses she could fake would possibly keep them out. The only shot she had was turning their hatred to Mikkel and his clan. She had to make him the enemy. 

She had no idea how.

A hand fell on Clarke's knee and she felt her skin crawl as she looked down at its owner. A vicious, heavily-tattooed woman was walking alongside their horse. A long scar slashed diagonally across her mouth so that her lips were split into flaps when she spoke.

"Your camp doesn't have a chance," she hissed in raspy English. "You should have left when we gave you the chance,  _skai skrish_."

"And you should have kept to our truce," Clarke replied coldly. In front of her, Lexa turned her head and made a curt motion with her hand.

"Enough."

The woman's hand fell away from Clarke's knee and she stepped back into the crowd, muttering to herself. On a horse alongside them, one of the generals murmured to Lexa in soft Trigedasleng.

"Sky girl is right. We have no reason to fight them. To many of my people, the Sky People are liberators, not the enemy. Not everyone is as eager to battle them as the Lake and Plains clans are."

"Hush, Jyonn. Now is not the time." Lexa's tone was carefully controlled, and Clarke devoted her energy to acting like she couldn't understand what they were saying.

Lexa's plight was becoming clearer to her now. Their world was balanced on a powder keg and there were too many sparks catching all around them. Something was bound to blow, but there was no telling who would catch the blast--Mikkel, Lexa, Clarke, or all of the Ark.

**************** 

They reached Camp Jaha under the full cover of darkness. The moon's cold, silvery light filtered weakly through layers of clouds and the leaves of the forests, illuminating little dappled patches along the path.

Lexa spurred her horse to the front of the line and Clarke tightened her hold automatically to keep from falling backwards. They were the first to reach the treeline, and Clarke craned her head over Lexa's shoulder to see what her old home looked like now.

At the sight, her mouth went dry and her heart relocated itself somewhere in the pit of her stomach. For a moment she wasn't even sure anything was there. If not for the long scar of barren land across the hillside, the camp would be impossible to make out. No lanterns hung, no guards shifted at their posts. She could just barely make out the metal gleam of the ship in the insufficient moonlight--it sat there, a hulking pile of cold, dead metal. The Ark had gone completely dark. 

_Where is everyone?_  Clarke thought wildly. If Bellamy had failed, if Bellamy was dead--

"Not an impressive display so far," Lexa said wryly, turning her head to gauge Clarke's reaction. Clarke held her breath as she felt Grounders whisper past her, heard them fan out along the plain and whip through the tall grass.

"If your people fled, we'll find them," Lexa promised.

"If they fled, you should let them go," Clarke protested. "You have no reason to fight them."

"Don't be foolish, Clarke. Of course I have a reason." Clarke was surprised by the heat in Lexa's voice and shame flashed through her. The ruined ritual had been traumatizing for more than just Bellamy; it had been a deadly insult and a profound sacrilege to the Grounders. Lexa would keep it a secret if it meant keeping her people safe, but she wouldn't forget it. Not for an instant.

They fell silent and watched the warriors circle the camp, dark shadows against the gray landscape. The shivering wind picked up, and in the relative quiet Clarke was suddenly aware of a humming noise vibrating gently at the base of her skull. She coughed, trying to clear it.

"If you give away our position, I'll order the attack," Lexa whispered sharply. Clarke fell silent. The hum continued.

From the other side of the camp, beyond the far side of the fence, a sharp cry rent the night. The horses flattened their ears and stamped their feet, and both Clarke and Lexa leaned forward, Clarke's hands now on Lexa's shoulders. Anxiety prickled her nerves as her eyes strained uselessly against the darkness. People were calling to each other, panic in their voices. Clarke realized they were all yelling the same thing:

_Mountain Men._   


A twisting vine of pure joy spiraled upward through Clarke's belly as she saw the first wisps of smoke drifting out in a ripple from the far side of the fence. Warriors were fleeing the blooming cloud as it stretched its greedy fingers ever outward. Someone had set up knock-out gas canisters around the perimeter.

It could only have been Bellamy.

"What--" Lexa demanded, and at that moment the darkness split in two. Floodlights cranked on, pillars of blinding light shooting up from the center of Camp Jaha and into the air. They lit the whole camp from the inside out, revealing rows and rows of silhouetted soldiers all along the electric fence. There was the sound of rifles being cocked, and the world all around Clarke became the vacuum of space. The hum continued alongside her galloping pulse. It was like the hum of the generators, but not quite.

"Hold!" Lexa called in a voice of pure authority. The Grounders around them held their guns and bows and spears at the ready, wavering on tightened muscles like oak trees creaking and swaying in a storm.

The moment sustained itself, but it was going to falter. Clarke stared in wonder at the camp. How, in the three months since she left, had their soldiers increased by so much? Had they doubled? Tripled? If they had, though...a sinking sensation swept through her. If they had, why illuminate their whole lineup? Why paint themselves as clear targets?

Why light themselves from behind?

It was all still a bluff. With a more careful eye, Clarke could see now that half the soldiers weren't moving, were in fact too stiff and still to be real people. They were decoys. This whole thing was a desperate ruse.

"You have more people than you used to," Lexa noted.

"Yes," Clarke improvised wildly. "Once we knocked out Mount Weather's radio, we were able to contact our other stations. We've reunited." She tried to make it sound as though this was not a brand new concept to her.

"Hm. They make themselves easy enough targets," Lexa mused. Clarke could hear the odds being calculated in the other woman's mind.

"Stop," Clarke ordered quickly, trying to cut off her line of thinking. "You've seen our borders. You've activated one of our defenses--thankfully, a nonlethal one. If you keep pushing, they'll open fire. And then you'll have a war."

Lexa glanced back at her and arched one delicate eyebrow as though that was not the worst idea she'd heard that day. "What do you suggest?"

"They need to know that we're not here to fight. They need to see someone they trust. Let me speak to them."

"No. We'll send Mikkel." Lexa's expression was carefully provocative. "You said he's had dealings with your people. Surely they'll recognize him as an ally."

She lifted her chin at the nearest general and the man nodded his understanding, trotting forward to the horse where Mikkel sat in sullen silence. With a flick of his knife, the general cut Mikkel's bonds and gave him back what Clarke could only assume was called a Death Hammer. It was a huge stone mallet rusty with blood, and it hung far too easily from his meaty hand as he dismounted.

"Go," Lexa ordered him evenly. "Prove your honesty."

_This_ _is the test_ , Clarke realized with cold fear.  _But she's not testing the camp's defenses. No defense is strong enough to keep out the Grounders. She's testing my story. If Camp Jaha fires on Mikkel, then it proves I'm a liar and all of this falls apart._

As Mikkel made his surprisingly graceful way down the hill to the front gate, Clarke's eyes were drawn inexorably back to the camp. What could the guards possibly think seeing an angry warlord approaching their gate? 

_I hope Bellamy is somewhere safe,_  was Clarke's only thought, ridiculous though it was. If shots were fired, they were all dead. Besides, she wouldn't put it past him to be right on the front lines.  _Or taking the first ill-advised shot._  She tried not to think that part.

Mikkel weaved in and out of moonlit patches, then stopped twenty yards from the front gate. Both sides watched him in tense silence to see what he would do. To Clarke's crawling horror, he lifted the Death Hammer into the air and shook it violently, then threw his head back and gave a skin-shivering shriek. It sounded for all the world like a battle cry, like an order to attack.

_He's trying to get them to shoot him,_  Clarke realized numbly as the ululating call went on and on.  _He'd commit suicide to start this war._

Along the fence, the sound of someone cocking back the hammer of a gun was crystal clear. At her knees, Clarke could hear the twine of a bow being stretched nearly to the breaking point. 

This was the end.

"Hey!" The voice that broke the tension was low, wry, and distinctly female. Clarke recognized it immediately, even over the grunting and yelling of Mikkel at the gate. Raven Reyes was speaking to the guards, loudly. "You have your orders to hold, soldier. You hold."

Mikkel's war cry trailed away and Raven's overpowered it, addressing him this time. "Yo! What do you want?"

The giant, hulking shape of him didn't seem to have a response at hand. He stood there, large and unsure, the hammer dangling from his block of a fist. He turned his shaggy head, glancing over his shoulder at Lexa and Clarke on the crest of the hill. Everyone waited. No one fired. Clarke's heart lifted.

Mikkel's plan had failed. He shifted his stance, looking ever more uncomfortable and out of place. When it became clear that no one planned on shooting him, he gave another roar, hefted the Death Hammer aloft, and charged toward the gate, a wordless scream clawing from his throat.

For a moment it looked like he was going to reach the gate and crash right into it, barrel through the splintered wood without even losing his footing. His steps were so heavy they nearly shook the ground, and he lowered his head like a battering ram. 

He never made it. Ten feet before he even reached the fence, he slammed to a stop, his body flattening itself as though against an invisible wall. His arms stretched wide and all of his muscles seemed to fling themselves away from his core, as though trying to flee the confines of his skin.

There was a sizzling, crackling  _kerrack_ , and a boom of blue lightning flashed outward from his spread-eagle body. For the briefest instant, a mesh screen five feet high was illuminated in electric blue light, completely encircling the camp. Then Mikkel's sparking, spasming body dropped to the ground and the light faded slowly, its after-image tattooed on the inside of Clarke's eyelids when she blinked.

A smell like burnt hair drifted across on the breeze. A near-perfect silence fell. All but that innocuous hum, like a generator, but not.

Clarke slowly became aware of two things: her mouth was open in shock, and Lexa was studying her carefully. She clapped her jaw shut in a hurry, but it was too late. Surprise was written all over her face.

"Lexa--" Clarke tried, but Lexa wasn't listening.

" _Trikru, hod op!_ " she called, preempting the buzz of voices and squashing it back into dark silence. She spurred her horse forward, out of the trees, pulling Clarke with her into the filtered moonlight. Her eyes swept the field, the forest, the camp, and she spoke now in English. "You have seen for yourselves Mikkel's treachery. He chose to seek ignoble death in the Mountain Men's tech rather than face us. He was a coward and a traitor. His fight is over, but his clan's is not. We leave the Sky People here. They have done us no wrong. We return at once to purify our tribes."

It couldn't be possible, not on the brink of war. Mobs didn't listen to leaders so easily. But Lexa's warriors were loyal and well-trained. The tips of their spears and arrows dipped hesitantly and then dropped. Across the fence, the knockout gas was dissipating. Warriors began to inch along the trees there, searching out those who had collapsed.

And just like that, the Grounders were retreating back the way they had come. All except Lexa, who fearlessly urged her horse right up toward the front gate. Clarke jounced along behind her, a kind of numb disbelief spreading through her body. As they got closer to the strange electric screen, the insidious humming got louder. It seemed to rattle in Clarke's bones, in her teeth. Up close, she could  _smell_ the electricity, like burning wires.

They stopped a careful distance from the screen, and Clarke slid obediently off the horse's rear. Her legs were wobbly as she hit the ground, and she very nearly crumpled. Lexa seemed not to notice as she dismounted. She walked closer and studied the screen, which appeared to be no more than a thin layer of mesh. Her face was inscrutable.

Clarke couldn't help herself. "Why?" she asked quietly, searching Lexa's profile in the pale moonlight. "You could tell I didn't know about the fence, so you know that Mikkel didn't know about it either. Why did you lie to everyone?"

"It's quite a fence," Lexa nodded, as though engaged in a totally different conversation. She clasped her hands behind her back and looked it up and down. "Your people can be...formidable. Even without you."

Lexa gazed down at the scorched and smoking body of Mikkel in the grass nearby and the smallest, swiftest smile passed over her face. Everything clicked into place, and Clarke understood. Mikkel had always been a problem for Lexa, one she couldn't deal with on her own without splitting the clans further. So she had orchestrated this: Either the Ark killed Mikkel, and the Grounders would become united in revenge, or the Ark let Mikkel live, which would prove him a traitor. Either way, Lexa rid herself of a dangerous enemy.

"Oh...yes. That's true. So I guess our truce stands," Clarke said carefully.

The smile disappeared and Lexa faced Clarke with an indulgent look, like a wolf too full to eat a lamb. "It seems so," she said distinctly. "We have other affairs to deal with. For now."

"Then we'll keep to our camp. For now," Clarke replied, trying to keep the fervent relief from her voice. She held out her hand, and was surprised when Lexa grasped her forearm and gripped it tightly.

"Clarke..." she said, leaning in a little and lowering her voice. For a moment she seemed uncertain and even a little regretful. "I know that things have been...complicated between us. If we hadn't..." She trailed off and shook her head, and the brief vulnerability vanished. "Command is lonely," she finished finally. "I wish you luck."

She squeezed Clarke's arm hard and then released her. With one last calculating glance at Camp Jaha's grounds, she swung herself onto her horse and headed back toward the woods. The last of the Grounders, lugging their unconscious comrades, melted into the trees and disappeared from sight. 

Clarke swayed on the spot.

Behind her, there was a sound like a firecracker fizzling out. She turned and found that the smell of scorched wires was dissipating, the hum fading away. The gate screeched open and people came pouring out--her mother, Kane, and soldiers. One of them approached the mesh perimeter and touched the top of it tentatively with his fingertips. It was dead. He folded it carefully downward and Abby flew over the gap, crashing into Clarke and hugging her tightly.

"Mom..." She clung to Abby, feeling exhaustion creep over her, mingling with the nagging disbelief that she had just accomplished the impossible. After a moment she pulled away, patiently enduring her mother's hands stroking her hair and cheeks. "Mom, how did you know what to do? How did you know to reinforce the camp?"

"It's what the people decided." Abby was in full doctor mode, which meant that she was unlikely to give real answers. Still, Clarke was surprised to hear a simmering anger beneath the professional calm. "But that doesn't matter right now. We need to get you inside." With intractable determination, she steered Clarke over the mesh and through the gate. As they passed the fence, she could see black bags made to roughly resemble the human form, stuffed with grass and propped up along all of the guard posts. She shook her head in wonder.

"But the fence...that screen...Who...?"

"That would be me." Raven approached at a hobbling stride, carrying a lantern. It shed a weak, flickering orange light on the small group. She offered Clarke a rare half-smile and tossed her head. "Well, and Wick. He's the one who got all of the knock-out gas canisters laid out like a minefield. Those Grounders set off so many of them, the smoke kind of got into the camp. So yeah, he's still passed out. Well, him and half the rear guard. That crap is  _potent_. "

Clarke looked around the grounds. Up close, she could see dim light leaking from the seals throughout the Ark, but that just made the contrasting black shadows around it all the emptier. Other than the guards around the gate, the yard was curiously abandoned. Had the people fled? Were they in hiding within the Ark? She thought he'd be here...surely the preparations were a sign of it... 

"Where did you get the knock-out gas?" she asked instead. "How did you know we were coming? How did you know not to  _attack?_ " she asked, turning back to Raven.

Someone had to say his name. Someone had to cut the weight that had been hanging around her neck all day.

"Bellamy Blake." 

It was Kane's voice on her other side, and it was not a happy sound. With a disapproving grimace, he raised one hand to massage his chest. It was not the tone she expected to hear concerning a man who had just helped her stop a war.

"Well, where is he?" she demanded, unable to keep the desperate note from her voice any longer. "What happened to him? What about Octavia?" She remembered Lexa's little half-apology, her words,  _Command is lonely._ It had never been clearer to Clarke that she needed to take a different path than the one Lexa was on. 

Raven shrugged. "He didn't mention Octavia. But you should know--"

The tramping of footsteps on metal interrupted her, and then the whine of hydraulics. The front ramp of Ark lowered with a screech, flooding the yard with light and illuminating a crowd of people jostling to get out. When the first few caught sight of Clarke, a ragged cheer went up through the group. Scraps of transparency paper flew through the air and drifted to the ground in jagged fragments.

"Mom..." Clarke took a step back uncertainly. It seemed a lot had changed in her time away from Camp Jaha. She needed something familiar, something real. "Mom, please. Where's Bellamy?"

"About that," Abby sighed, as the crowd surged into the open air, their shouts and applause nearly drowning out her voice. "Clarke, there are a couple of things you should know."

****************

"Can you at least untie my hands?" Bellamy asked with all the patience he could manage, which admittedly wasn't much. He held up his bound wrists and indicated the narrow confines of the cell with his chin. "I'm already locked up. I'm not exactly going anywhere."

The guard near the door hadn't said much so far, but Bellamy had always been the persistent kind. Or, as his sister put it, "kind of a dick."

"No," the guard said tonelessly, without looking his way.

"Then just tell me what's happening out there. Did the Grounders get here?" The guard said nothing. Bellamy had been hearing yelling, chanting, and chaos throughout the Ark at various intervals for hours. At one point all the guards had left the prison cells entirely and gone running down the hall. He'd still received nothing in the way of a decent explanation. "Did they attack?" Nothing. "Hello?"

Nothing.

With a muttered curse, Bellamy collapsed back onto his bed, the rickety metal frame groaning beneath him. Still, it was better than crouching on the floor in the launch bay like the last time he was imprisoned in the Ark. Now they had individual cells for long-term sentences, along with lighting, water, and beds. Somehow it was all more ominous than comforting.

"Chancellor on deck!" someone in the hallway shouted, and the guard snapped to attention. Bellamy ran his tongue over dry lips. Which Chancellor, exactly, was headed his way? If it was Abby, the worst she would do would be to send him off to look for Clarke again. But if it was Kane...

"On your feet!" the guard snapped.

"Eat me," Bellamy growled, resting his elbows on his knees.

Bellamy had felt a noose around his neck before--he wasn't keen on experiencing it again. If this came to a fight, so be it. There was the sound of footsteps on the metal floor, and then a sharp tap on the door. The guard quickly opened it and stepped out. Bellamy squinted, but the shadows in the hall were too deep. There were two figures arguing in the hall, and one figure was holding the other back.

"'Sedition. Insubordination. Striking the active chancellor'--is that the kind of behavior you want to promote in this camp?" a female voice whispered urgently. Bellamy breathed more easily. It was Abby speaking.

"And 'inciting a riot,' yes, I see the chart, Mom. That's basically Bellamy's morning routine." 

Bellamy found himself standing, a clot of muddled emotions knotting up his insides. Clarke was here. Clarke was home.

"He kept us from going after you," he heard Abby say thickly, accusingly. "He left you with the enemy."

"He was following my orders."

"I'm telling you, Clarke, you are  _not_ going in there."

"And I told you, Mom, that you can't tell me what to do anymore. Excuse me."

Clarke shouldered past the dark figure of her mother and stepped through the doorway, finally illuminated by the flickering fluorescent lights. She didn't make it more than two steps into the room before she stopped abruptly, a complicated series of emotions flicking across her face. He knew his own expression mirrored hers. 

An immense pressure had lifted from his chest. She was okay. He hadn't gotten her killed. There was dried blood on her neck and dark circles under her eyes. Her hair was bedraggled and caked with dirt. He realized slowly that his first emotion upon seeing her wasn't anger, and that made him furious. He considered telling her to get the hell out. He considered kissing her senseless.

"How's Octavia?" she asked finally, hesitantly. The question made him grit his teeth.

"Fine," he rumbled, unable to quite meet her gaze. "She and Lincoln are headed for the coast." He couldn't help but notice the way tension drained from her face at the answer. She looked like she'd been carrying that fear for a long time. His own curiosity prompted him to grudgingly ask, "And the Grounders?"

She shook her head. "Gone. For now. Miraculously." 

He stared down at the floor and nodded, pressing his lips together. Abby's footsteps grew faint in the hallway and disappeared. A simmering silence settled. The metal cuffs made his wrists ache and the five feet between them stretched for miles. There was no dignified way to stand with his hands bound in front of him, so he settled for straightening up and raising his eyes to hers. 

"So," she said, her eyes searching his, her mouth trying for a smile but conveying only a weary sadness. "I've lost track of who had to make the worst choices today."

He closed his mouth hard around an angry response and felt a muscle in his jaw twitch. "What do you want, Clarke?" he demanded tightly. 

Her attempt at a smile vanished instantly. It gave him a pang to see her suddenly so wary again, but what did she expect? That they would just keep doing this, year after year, killing and sacrificing people and then turning to each other for forgiveness when it was all over? 

Setting her mouth in a thin line, she squared her shoulders and walked fully into the room, her steps careful and determined. Without meeting his gaze, she grabbed him by the handcuffs and pulled him a stumbling step closer to her. He tried to jerk away, but she held him fast in place. His senses were suddenly filled with her rain-washed hair, the warm, green scent of her. 

The nearness of her prickled across his nerves. He couldn't seem to stop looking at her, and it was hard to tell what exactly was making his skin burn. Her eyes flicking up to examine his face, she produced a tiny silver key from her sleeve and twisted it into the lock of his cuffs. The manacles dropped from his hands and Bellamy fell back half a step, massaging one chafed wrist. They appraised each other carefully.

"You can leave right now," she said in her urgent, husky voice. "But before you do--" 

Without a second glance, he brushed past her and headed for the door, which was open and unmanned. There might still be a guard out in the hall somewhere, but one wouldn't really be a problem.

"Wait!" She darted in front of him, an annoyed expression creasing her brow. He watched her struggle to tamp it down. "Please. Just listen to me."

"I'm not interested in your explanations, Princess," he growled, already muscling by her. "If you're busting me out, it means I've got about ten minutes before your mom tries to throw me back in here. I plan to be gone by then."

He stepped into the dark hallway just as Clarke called in exasperation, "Sergeant, will you please escort Mr. Blake back in here?"

A uniformed man just outside the door snapped to attention immediately, and Bellamy found himself in the punishing grip of another soldier before he had the chance to run. He was hustled roughly back into the cell, where Clarke stood tall under the white lights, a picture of disgruntled calm.

"Thank you," she said with a nod to the man. "Please close the door behind you and take a walk. I'll let you know when I'm done."

"Yes, Chancellor." 

It took a second to sink in. The door closed with a heavy metal screech. The sound of footsteps faded away. Bellamy felt his eyebrows rise so high they nearly hit his hairline. Clarke gave him a look of weary amusement, crossing her arms over her chest.

"You must have given everyone quite the speech today," she murmured. "Apparently they convened a vote as soon as Raven had the screen put up." She smiled with half her mouth. "I'm surprised they didn't vote for you."

With the door closed, the cell was somehow so much smaller, just a metal box with a sink and a bed. The parallels to the bunker were not lost on him. He began to pace, restless, and she just stood in the middle of the room, the pull of her almost gravitational, the soft curve of her cheek leaching his anger away from him. He held onto it more tightly.

"Well, I really talked you up, Chancellor," he said grimly. He appreciated that  _Chancellor_  had just as biting of a ring to it as  _Princess_. "But you already fit the part."

She took that with a small nod, as though it was her due. When she looked back up, her expression was once again one of wary patience. 

"Look, I know you're mad at me," she said evenly, her eyes tracking him as he moved around the room. "But I just bluffed my way out of a war and I'm not really sure how long that's going to hold. No matter what you think of what I did today, you and I just pulled off something incredible--we stopped an attack with no casualties to our own. I need someone with me I can trust, someone who can help me fight and protect my people. You made me realize today that I shouldn't do this alone. I don't like who I am--who I have to be--when I do." 

He found himself curious despite himself. "So what?"

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "So I want you to be my Vice Chancellor."

He arched an eyebrow and shook his head derisively. She was really unbelievable sometimes. "I'll pass."

"Why?"

He circled her, unable to make his frustration totally clear to her, or even to himself. He didn't want to look at her, but she was the only thing in the room. Her eyes were so damn blue. "Because I need someone with me that I can trust too."

He had finally,  _finally_  struck a nerve. She swallowed hard and closed her eyes. "Bellamy, you trust me," she said in a strained voice. "Everything you did today proves it." He said nothing; there was nothing to say. He couldn't exactly deny it. "And you understand why I didn't try to save Octavia--why I didn't think I could," she persisted. 

"Yes." His response stopped them both. He shook his head and resumed his circuit, his hands balled into fists at his side. "But it doesn't change anything."

"Why not?"

"Why  _not?_ " He passed by the bed and aimed a kick at the metal bedpost. It  _clanged_  against the wall and Clarke jumped. "Because it was my  _sister_ , Clarke!" His voice rose to a shout, cracking with the strain, but he didn't care. "My  _family_ , my  _responsibility_!" He stopped pacing and strode right at her, but she didn't back down. He stared down at her, his breath coming hard. "I trusted you," he said hoarsely, unable to keep the plaintive note out of his voice. "And y ou were just going to stand there and let her die."

There it was. He expected her to deny it, to equivocate in some way, or maybe even to accuse him in turn for his part in the day's events. Instead she bit her lip and met his eyes without flinching. He could see deep exhaustion swimming there. 

"What did you expect me to do?" she demanded quietly, her gaze digging into his skin. 

It wasn't a question he wanted to think about. 

"Whatever you ended up doing instead," he dodged, turning away. "Because it worked, didn't it?"

She caught his arm, forced him to stop and look at her. "You know me," she said in a raw voice. "You  _know_  me, Bellamy. I was doing what I thought was best. I didn't think I had another choice."

He had no argument for that. He and Clarke had understood each other nearly from the beginning, had known what it cost in the other to make hard choices. But then he remembered the point of the knife at his sister's throat. 

"Then Camp Jaha is lucky they made you their chancellor," he retorted, shrugging her off. "Since you'll always put your people ahead of your friends."

He said it to hurt her and then hated himself when it worked. "You're right," she said painfully, as though something was stuck in her throat. Her tough expression crumbled at the corners and she stepped backwards to the bed, sinking down slowly onto the mattress with her hands clenched in her lap. "You're right. The things I've done..." She dropped her gaze, a curtain of golden hair swinging forward to obscure her face. "I've been telling myself all day that I did what I had to do, but then..." She drew in a shaking breath and her voice faltered. "Then I saw what that's done to Lexa, how cold and  _calculating_  she can be, and I just..." She trailed off, her fingers picking at a loose thread on the cuff of her jacket. 

He found himself moving toward her against his will. He wanted to punish her; he wanted to absolve her. Bellamy had once hung one of his best friends by his wrists just for  _touching_  Octavia, so why didn't he feel that same fury for Clarke? 

"I was going to let Octavia die," she said in a ruined voice, shaking her head as though truly admitting it to herself for the first time. He waited for her to parrot his previous arguments-- _When are you going to realize you're in a war--_ and-- _We are not what we have to do to survive--_ and every other philosophy he'd thrown at her to justify the deaths of those they'd left behind. "I was going to sacrifice her to stop a war." A little catch of disbelief in her breath, and she gave her head another shake. "I always thought I..." Her lips twisted and she stared down into her lap. "I just want to be able to be better than that."

No excuse followed the statement. The self-loathing in her voice twisted in his chest, and a feeling of shame crept along the edges of his mind. Unable to look at her a second longer, he lowered himself onto the bed next to her and laid back on the mattress. The white lights flickered and buzzed dully overhead. He counted the holes in the bulkhead. 

_Your sister, your responsibility._  His mother's voice repeated itself like a mantra in his head, all the time. Although a small, niggling part of him added quietly,  _But not Clarke's_.

"Well, I ruined your plans so I could save her life," he sighed to the ceiling. He wasn't sure why he said it, except that it was the truth. "I left you in an enemy camp with no backup, even though I knew you might die."  _T_ _hat we all might die._  Just how close Camp Jaha had come to total destruction because of him was something that had been slowly sinking in all day. 

He turned his head to look at Clarke; she was staring at her hands, her throat working hard against something. "So is that it?" she asked hollowly. "Have we finally gotten to the point where we just can't forgive each other anymore?"

The hunched curve of her back was so defeated, the sheet of blonde hair in front of her face such inadequate protection.  He could feel the exhaustion deep inside her bones, the ache of it. It was in him too. 

"I don't know, Clarke," he said honestly, feeling the last of his anger draining away. "Maybe it's the only thing we have left."

_The crap she's had to do,_  Raven's voice said in his head.  _It hurts her, too_. 

Maybe he and Clarke were the same--both of them slowly becoming nothing but scar tissue from all the bad decisions they'd been forced to make--tough, numb, and aching. But maybe not alone.

Her jacket had fallen away from her shoulder on one side. When he raised his hand to her, the tips of his fingers barely grazed her smooth white skin. She was warm and solid under his touch. He shifted his weight up onto his elbow to look at her and was surprised to see a silent tear fall from her down-turned eyes into her lap. She made no move to hide it from him.

"Hey," he said, unable to stop a rush of concern. He ran his knuckles up and down her arm. "Hey." Sitting up, he craned his neck to catch her eye, but she wouldn't look up from her twisting fingers. "I forgive you, Clarke," he said, brushing her hair aside. "Okay? I forgive you."

His anger she had withstood without flinching, but his clemency broke her. A low sob cracked her throat and she covered her face with her hands, leaning forward until her forehead nearly touched her knees. For a handful of seconds she made no sound at all, and then a broken cry came wrenching loose in a long and wracking burst.

"I can't," she ground out in a strangled voice, her chest heaving between sobs. "I can't."

He had never seen her lose it before. He had never seen her let go. Time and again, all she had done was bear up under the weight of her decisions, of her own and others' condemnation. Seeing the way it tore her up was unbearable. Putting his arm around her shoulders, he drew her gently to his chest. She pressed her wet face into his shirt, weeping freely, and he lowered them both carefully back onto the bed, cradling her to him.

Bellamy had never made a straight apology to anyone without a rope around his neck, but the impulse to start now was strong. "You did what you had to do," he said roughly instead. "You always have." It was the best he could manage.

It didn't take her long to pull herself back together. The weeping subsided into long, shaking breaths, but she didn't pull away. Her hand rested over his heart, the side of her face nestled in the crook of his shoulder. He held her carefully against him, ironically aware in that moment that he felt the same protectiveness for her that he normally did for Octavia.

When Clarke spoke again, her voice was raw but under control. "I got so used to making the hard decisions," she murmured, bringing her hand up briefly to wipe away the water under her eyes. "Finn. The missile at Tondc. All those people in Mount Weather. The Grounders near the bridge. I didn't even think that there might be a way to stop this attack without someone dying. I've stopped looking for other options, Bellamy." Her fingers clenched in the fabric of his shirt. "I think I'm forgetting how."

"You're not." He tilted her chin up to meet his gaze. Her cheeks were streaked with tears; her eyes were the the color of the sky. "You could have let me die in that cave," he reminded her.

Her hand came up to trace the hard line of his jaw. "No, I couldn't."

They stared at each other in silence for an endless minute. Then she lifted her face to his and kissed him, soft as a question. A flock of birds took flight in his chest, their dark wings beating a heavy rhythm against his ribs. He hesitated only a moment, and then his mouth opened over hers. From the time he was six, his love, his loyalty, and his limited ability to forgive had belonged solely to his sister. Damned if at some point that hadn't extended to Clarke, though he couldn't exactly pinpoint when. All he knew was the familiar ferocity of it in his veins, the tenderness that came from wanting to protect her instead of hurt her. He kissed her like he'd lost her. He kissed her like he'd found her. Her head slipped off his shoulder onto the pillow beneath them and he followed her down. 

Everything before this moment burned itself to ashes. Her mouth was the first bite of a warm peach, her heartbeat a caged animal beneath his ribs. For a long moment he just kissed her, stroking her jaw with his thumb, feeling her twisted muscles relax beneath him. But the burning tension from the day hadn't left either of them--it had just transformed. With his fury dissipated and her tears dry on her cheeks, the pliant give of her body beneath his was quickly becoming unbearable. He shifted his thigh between her legs and was rewarded when her hips arched automatically against him. 

The kiss grew deeper and more pressing. Her fingers trailed up his spine, pulling his shirt up to his shoulders, urging it over his head. He took a second to shrug it free and toss it to the floor before he returned to her mouth, her palms sliding up over the naked expanse of his back. He was aware of how visible they were through the little window in the door. If someone walked in right now they'd find a prisoner half-naked and on top of the Chancellor under the stark white lights.

He didn't remotely give a damn.

Her hand slipped down between them and worked its way inside the waistband of his pants. When her fingers closed around him, he went hard as a metal rod in her hand. He was barely able to hold on as she slowly stroked the length of him, closing his eyes and setting his teeth against the urge to drive into her, to lose himself there.

Undoing his buttons with her other hand, she tugged the heavy pants down over his hips, and this time he didn't stop her. As the waistband slid to his thighs, his erection sprang free, and her warm palm was there, her thumb making slowly circles across the head. It drew a raw, primitive sound from him, and he leaned his whole body into her hand. 

His response brought the first shadow of a smile to her face, and it was a beautiful thing. Swinging her hair across her shoulder, she rolled him over and climbed on top of him, straddling his hips. He helped her tug the jacket free from her arms, balled it up, and tossed it aside without looking. He wanted his hands on her. In one smooth motion, she drew her shirt over her head, revealing breasts so full he could drown in them. He rose up to meet her, his palms against her spine, the feeling of her bare stomach tingling against his. He could feel her heart pounding in her chest.

The clasp of her bra came open like a sigh and fell away, and he filled his palms with the generous mounds of her soft flesh, worshiped her with his mouth. When he dragged the flat of his tongue across her nipple, her back arched like a snapped bow and she gave a delirious little moan.

It was different than the bunker. He couldn't seem to take his time with her body--he wanted all of it, under his hands, against his lips. They kicked away the rest of their clothing like so much detritus, scraps of ragged black cloth littering the floor. She returned to straddle his lap, the heat from her bare thighs unbearable against his waist. It made him stiffen with desire and he arched up against her, desperate for her.

But Clarke was different this time, too. No longer in a hurry, she tilted her hips away from him and he froze. When he sought out her gaze he saw a naked vulnerability there that made his pulse jump. Deliberately, she pressed her fingers against his collarbone and pushed him down until his shoulder blades nestled deep into the lumpy mattress. She held him there a moment, her strong thighs keeping him in place, her eyes roaming his body as though committing it to memory.

There was nothing to hide from each other in the sterile white light. She traced one finger over the shiny pink burn covering his shoulder--a souvenir from the exploding acid tanks at Mount Weather. With gentle reverence, she leaned forward and pressed her lips against it. Bellamy closed his eyes, his breath catching in his throat. He rested his hand on her head, stroking her hair. Her open mouth traveled down his chest to the flat plane of his stomach, and she touched her tongue to the long slice of scar tissue where the Grounder general had cut him following the dropship attack. He shivered--the deliberate tenderness in the brush of her lips was the most erotic thing he'd ever experienced. She moved along his body, planting a kiss on every knotted scar, every deep bruise. The sensation was nearly overwhelming. Bellamy had spent his life on the Ground getting the shit beaten out of him, but he'd never thought there would be someone there to put him back together.

As she ran her tongue over a knife wound above the jut of his hip, the swell of her breasts trailed along his thighs, brushing against his erection with velvety softness. He became so hard in that instant that it was painful, and his hips strained upwards against her body almost against his will. 

She noticed. Breathing a laugh against his burning skin, she shifted back and forth on her knees, pressing her breasts together around his aching cock, enveloping him in their silky warmth. His hand tightened into a fist in her hair, his breath jackknifing in his chest.

He was too close to losing control. Exhaling in a rush, he pulled her back up to him, capturing her mouth with his. When he rolled her over, she moved to accommodate him, her toes dragging up his bare calves. Everywhere her naked skin touched his was a branding iron. Her nails dug into the broad span of his back until pain and pleasure shot through him in equal measure.

When the brush of her tongue slipped into his mouth, he slid his cock between her thighs, already coated with her arousal. Her legs locked around his waist, drawing him forward with the crook of her knees until he was pushed all the way against the silky entrance of her sex. And then she stopped.

Bellamy struggled up onto his elbows, fighting the pull of the sagging mattress so that he could look down into her eyes. She met his gaze with more than passion. There was fear there, holding him still, not quite inside her.

"Clarke," he rasped, brushing his thumb over her cheek. 

"Bellamy..." She swallowed hard, her eyes roaming his face. "I... _Ai hod--_ "

"No," he cut her off. "Say it."

"I love you," she whispered, without looking away. "I love you."

"You're damn right," he growled, a smile breaking his mouth as he lowered it to hers.

Her knees loosened their hold on his hips and her arms looped themselves around his neck. Reaching up to grip the metal headboard, Bellamy pushed himself forward, sliding deep inside her in one smooth thrust. She tipped her head back, a breathy cry pulled from her throat, and it was all he could do not to come right then and there. 

He tried to be gentle, withdrawing and then pressing into her slowly, filling her back up. But she unraveled him. Her hips moved in desperate circles, her full body melting against him. He groaned into her shoulder and succumbed to her rhythm, helpless against it. Her fingers tangled in his curly hair and yanked his head back, her wild mouth seeking him out. Their lips met in a searing kiss that went unbroken until he began to pump hard inside her.

"Bellamy," she panted, clutching his neck, her fingers caught in the tendrils of hair curling at the nape.

He filled her with quick, forceful strokes, a handful of her supple breast caught in his rough palm. The metal bed frame squealed its protest as it banged against the wall and Clarke's body writhed beneath his, her nails biting into his shoulders.

He buried his face in the crook of her neck as he drove into her and with every thrust he felt her hot, ragged breath in his ear, coaxing him along. He could tell she was close when her hands fell to his hips, urging him to a pace that was frantic, delirious, the bedsprings below them screeching along to their frenetic rhythm. 

Liquid heat was already unspooling in his groin. He pressed his lips against her ear and breathed the words, in English, in Grounder, over and over.

A strangled gasp in her throat. Her golden head ratcheted back as she bucked beneath him. He curled his arm protectively around her, his palm resting on the crown of her head to keep it from hitting metal. Holding her in place, he surrendered to the pull of her, losing himself in the hot, wet burst of her body. 

"Bellamy--!" she gasped. 

The sound of his name on her tongue pushed him over the edge just as she shuddered around him. It dragged a guttural groan from deep within him to feel her come--when she bucked beneath him all of his muscles tightened and he released himself inside her.

******************

When her thoughts could reorder themselves at last, everything was different.

Clarke couldn't remember the last time she'd felt this way. There had been a time on the Ark that had come close--when she had two parents, a best friend, and a feeling of security. Then she had had an abrupt and brutal lesson in how quickly one bad decision could tear everything apart. One mistake had led to the death of her father, the estrangement of her mother, the break between her and Wells. She'd thought that was how the world worked.

But maybe, sometimes, it wasn't. Maybe you could make a terrible decision and still be loved at the end of the day. Maybe you could be forgiven.

For a long time she and Bellamy did nothing but kiss, softly and slowly, his palm cupping her jaw, her fingers woven into the heavy locks at his temple. His naked body was heavy on top of hers, and where they were joined their skin was slick with sweat.

When he pulled away she made a contented noise deep in her throat. He rolled off her onto his side, facing her. He didn't bother pulling the blanket up and she admired the hard plane of his chest for a long moment, the bunched muscles along his shoulders. She looked up and saw him watching her, his dark eyes soft. She wanted to kiss every dusky freckle on his cheeks. Her hair spanned the pillow and he sifted the golden strands through his fingers, studying them.

"Okay," he said after a moment. 

She shifted her head up onto her palm, furrowing her brow. "Okay, what?"

"Okay, I'll take the job." She liked the way his dark eyes darted to her face and away again, the dimple in his chin. He cleared his throat and lowered his voice. "But I'm going to be in charge of anything that affects Octavia. Other than that--" He licked his lips and shrugged, flicking the tips of her hair away. "--Other than that, we can do whatever you want."

She grinned. "Whatever the hell we want," she chanted teasingly. He leaned in and kissed her, so long and rough that when she finally broke away they were both slightly out of breath. His mouth had taken on that sultry curve and her quickened heartbeat told her she was in trouble.

"We should probably get dressed," she murmured unconvincingly. Bellamy leaned in and touched his lips to the sensitive skin below her earlobe.

"We could," he agreed seriously, his tongue now trailing down her neck, raising goosebumps in its wake. "Or." He didn't voice any alternative. He didn't need to.

His teasing mouth had barely reached her collarbone when a fist hammered on the door and the  _bang_ _bang bang_ nearly made her jump out of her skin. She groped wildly at her waist, searching for the thin blanket there, but Bellamy didn't even pause.

"Tell them you're in a meeting," he suggested, his teeth nipping playfully along her shoulder. "Important Council stuff."

Stifling a laugh, Clarke slipped out from beneath him and threw her legs over the side of the bed, one arm unsuccessfully covering her chest as she searched the ground for her clothes. Rolling off the mattress, Bellamy stood languidly and stretched, making no attempt to conceal himself.

"Chancellor?" the guard called through the door, his voice somewhere between embarrassment and concern. Through the narrow window she could see his profile, purposely staring straight ahead down the hallway. "You're...ah...requested at the Council. At your...convenience."

"I'll be right out!" Clarke called desperately, still sitting at the edge of the mattress, her free hand scrabbling under the bed.

Bellamy paused in the midst of buttoning his pants and glanced up at the door. He raised an eyebrow, his mouth twitching with the start of a smile. "Think he knows?"

It was all too ridiculous. A laugh bubbled up from nowhere within her, from a place she'd thought long dried up. She dropped her arm from her chest and buried her face in her hands, giggling helplessly. Bellamy whipped her shirt at her head and when she tore it free she saw him grinning at her, his eyes creased above that wide, curling smile that she loved so much.

"Get dressed," he ordered with wry good nature as she pulled the shirt over her head and hunted for her pants. "Your people await."

"Our people," she corrected. "Vice Chancellor."

"Yeah, your mom will love that." 

She felt a brief stab of disappointment as his ragged black T-shirt fell loosely over the ridges of his stomach, concealing it from her view. They were finally fully dressed. The guard had disappeared from the window entirely.

Clad once more in layers of cloth and heavy canvas, Clarke felt again like a person who belonged to the world outside, cold and harsh in comparison to the warm little room. She shook her hair free from the collar of her jacket and carefully set her expression.

"Okay," she said with a sigh. "I'm ready."

"Time to go make more tough decisions," Bellamy murmured sardonically, striding toward the door. Clarke caught his wrist before he reached it and he turned, his face lean and sharply beautiful under the white lights.

"Together," she said, and watched his eyes go soft. He took her hand in his and nodded.

She knocked once and the door opened. Their fingers still entwined, they stepped out of the cell and into the hall, out toward their people and the soft and waiting night.


End file.
